Problem adding vertical marker line to line chart

  • Thread starter Thread starter lbb
  • Start date Start date
L

lbb

I have a line chart with date values on the x axis. I want to add vertical
marker lines on the chart to show when certain events happened (which do not
correspond to dates for which there is data in the line chart). I did a
websearch and supposedly you can do this with something called the "series
method", so I tried that. It worked all right, except where my vertical bar
showed up on the chart was nowhere near the date that I'd assigned to it;
hence, not very useful. I tried the "error bar method" and the results were
even more ghastly and useless. Is there a method for doing this that
actually works?

Thanks,
 
Hi Andy,

There's one thing missing in your example -- that's how you get the proper
X values associated with the new data series. I have four of them and
they're just lining up with the major tick marks. I need them to show up
instead in locations that correspond to certain dates. Any ideas?
 
Hi,

I didn't look at Andy's site but you can alway create a dummy series with
the dates you want to display the lines for.

For example, here is some sample data

A B C D
1/1/2009 8
1/2/2009 6
1/5/2009 5
1/6/2009 1
1/7/2009 9
1/8/2009 8
1/9/2009 2
1/12/2009 10
1/13/2009 3
1/14/2009 3
1/15/2009 9
1/16/2009 5
1/3/2009 10 0
1/10/2009 10 0

In the original data 1/3/2009 and 1/10/2009 are not part of the series, but
they are the dates at which you want a vertical line. The values ( 0 and 10
) represent the top and bottom of the line you want to include on your chart.

1. Plot all of the data as 3 lines.
2. Double-click the second or third series on the chart and on the Patterns
tab choose None for Line, and on the Options tab choose High-Low lines. You
would also set the other series line to None on its Patterns tab.
3. You can remove the series from the Legend if you want
4. I set the scale so that the Maximum is the height you want the line to
go to, here 10.
5. I also select the chart and choose Tools, Options, Chart tab, and choose
Interpolated as the Plot empty cells as.
 
Hi,

You mean the part about adding new series, moving it to the secondary axis
and formatting the secondary x axis so specific dates correspond to dates
and not category tickmarks?

Cheers
Andy
 
Yeah -- I cleared up some of my confusion -- I thought it was a secondary Y
axis, didn't understand it was a secondary x axis. I got that part
straightened out, but it still isn't working. For example, one of the series
that I want to use to create a date marker has a value of 11000 (which is
where I want the point to show up as far as the Y value), category (x axis)
labels is the whole range for the regular chart (12 of these, one for each
month) and secondary label is the cell containing the date where I want the
bar to appear. It shows up, but it's nowhere near the date in the secondary
label. How exactly is Excel supposed to know where to place it?

I have to say, this all seems like one great big almighty kluge to do
something that ought to be a fairly standard function.
 
I doubt it should be this complicated :)

If you want to send your file I will have a look see.

andy AT andypope DOT info

Cheers
Andy
 
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