Excel - relative vs. absolute chart time

November 6, 2006 8:30 AM

Excel question on charting time - how to make it appear relative, not absolute?

I want to create a chart of multiple occurances of intermittently timed items, but I want the times to appear properly spaced along the X-axis (with # of occurances on the Y-axis). However, Excel wants to make each timed occurance uniformly spaced. For example... The columns of times and number are:
8:00am, 3 times
8:03am, 1 time
8:10am, 2 times
9:00am, 4 times

Excel gives me a nice evenly spaced bar chart like this:
4|..........x.
3|.x..........
2|.......x....
1|....x.......
+ ----------

But I want a more correct one like this:
4|.................x.
3|.x.................
2|.........x.........
1|....x..............
+ ---------------

Sorry if there is a blantanly obvious answer to this, but googling various terms was not helpful. Follow-up: Anyone know of a good Excel help site(s)?

posted by ObscureReferenceMan to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Best answer: You need an X-Y chart, not column or line.
posted by GuyZero at 8:32 AM on November 6, 2006

Mr Excel - in answer to your follow-up.
posted by paduasoy at 8:58 AM on November 6, 2006

An almost identical question was asked before, though I don't think the poster got a completely satisfactory answer.
posted by miagaille at 9:19 AM on November 6, 2006

Under chart type in the chart wizard, choose "XY (Scatter)."
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:02 AM on November 6, 2006

Response by poster: GuyZero (and DevilsAdvocate) - thanks! I knew should have looked there. Duh!

And thanks for the link, paduasoy. I'll be checking it out directly.
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 10:22 AM on November 6, 2006