Exel Bar Chart - Quarter report

[Xephire]

Hi all,

I am writing a quarter report and Excel tries to "help" me by filling in the missing months. Therefore the graph will show blanks that I do not want...

Sample Data:

<table x:str="" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 243pt;" width="325" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><col style="width: 59pt;" width="79"> <col style="width: 86pt;" width="115"> <col style="width: 98pt;" width="131"> <tbody><tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td class="xl29" style="height: 12.75pt; width: 59pt;" width="79" height="17">Date</td> <td style="width: 86pt;" width="115">Income</td> <td style="width: 98pt;" width="131">Repayments</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td class="xl29" style="height: 12.75pt;" x:num="39783" height="17">2008/12</td> <td x:num="13379987.49" align="right">13379987.49</td> <td x:num="48053880.630000003" align="right">48053880.63</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td class="xl29" style="height: 12.75pt;" x:num="39873" height="17">2009/3</td> <td x:num="11362246.35" align="right">11362246.35</td> <td x:num="38869025.619999997" align="right">38869025.62</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td class="xl29" style="height: 12.75pt;" x:num="39965" height="17">2009/6</td> <td x:num="13809443.08" align="right">13809443.08</td> <td x:num="91457895.599999994" align="right">91457895.6</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 12.75pt;" height="17"> <td class="xl29" style="height: 12.75pt;" x:num="40057" height="17">2009/9</td> <td x:num="11508347.5" align="right">11508347.5</td> <td x:num="55120641.5" align="right">55120641.5</td> </tr> </tbody></table>
Creating the graph will also create entries 2009/01, 2009/02 etc with 0,0 data.

I have used the =text(A2;"YYYY/M") to translate the values to text format and this works. There is only one "but", in that it will be used for different countries with country specific regional settings, other regional formats will be YYYY.M or M/YYYY etc.

Is there a way to overwrite Excel in adding the missing months and still keep it in date format so regional settings can be used?

Have a great day,

Alex

 

[Gerald Higgins]

Wow, I didn't know Excel did that, but it does ! I think that's horrible

Maybe play around with the X axis scale options, set the base unit to months and set the major unit to 3 months. Maybe also take off the tick marks.

ps - forgot to say - welcome to the board !

 

[Xephire]

Thanks Gerald,

I tried the scaling, but this will still leave a large gap between the entries. It also impacts the width of the bars. I normally set this with the gap width option (decrease to make the bars thicker), but this does not work as expected.

Don't you just love it when Excel starts to think.... At least we do not need to be affraid it will pass a Turing test any soon

 

[Andy Pope]

Excel is assuming that by using dates you want a Time series axis.
In your case you don't so you will have to set the chart to use category axis.

Right click chart abd pick,
Chart Options > Axes > Category

 

[Xephire]

Andy,

That did the trick... Thanks for you help.

Have a great weekend...