Numbers Graphing Question
Posted December 28th, 2007 @ 09:45am by Erik J. Barzeski
Simple question: is there any way for Numbers to display this data with the data spread out accordingly? The dates and times aren't evenly spaced, but I'd like them to be.
Ideally I'd also like to plot the high and low values (perhaps as a box) and then connect the averages with a line.
So the ideal graph would have boxes containing all the values, appropriately spaced apart relative to calendar time and not even intervals, with a line connecting the averages.
I can make a spreadsheet of all of this in Numbers (or Excel) quite easily. I've got the date and time, I've got the hi/lo columns, I've got the averages column… I just don't think I can graph it with appropriate spacing let alone with the hi/lo boxes.
Anyone know what I can do? Even if I have to use Excel instead?
One Response to "Numbers Graphing Question"
Posted 28 Dec 2007 at 12:22pm #
"Simple question: is there any way for Numbers to display this data with the data spread out accordingly? The dates and times aren't evenly spaced, but I'd like them to be."
Do you mean that you want the X axis to represent time, with a point (or set of points) that represents that data?
In general, Excel/NeoOffice (I don't have Numbers, sorry) only let you do this if you can formulate the X axis as a number and then run a scatter plot. In this case a date/time is a special case of "number.
For Excel/Windows, I the format that seems to work is "11/30 16:20" for the date/time column. If you then create a scatter plot, your X axis will be sized appropriately.
In general, all the spreadsheet software I've seen *really* bites for doing time-series data. Sadly, I don't have a really great solution for this when the data involves actual dates/times (as opposed to, say, seconds from start). Plot (http://plot.micw.eu/) is keen but doesn't handle date/time format for imports. Gnuplot is sort of a PITA to use.