Add a horizontal line to a chart

Felix N wrote:
Hi. I would like to add a horizontal line to a stacked column chart. Is there any way for me to manually tell Numbers to put a horizontal line of a certain colour in my chart? I need to do it for comparisons sake.

Here's an image of a solution I suggested for a similar issue not long ago.



The red line is placed automatically and, as you've probably noted, appears only on the bars themselves. The 'target' determining the position of the red line was changed for the last two columns. Note the different value entered in Target column for the last two rows.

Details are in this thread.

Regards,
Barry

Hello Felix,

Welcome to the Numbers Discussions. If you are new to Numbers you may not have downloaded the Numbers User Guide PDF, available from the Help menu. See "Chapter 9: Working with Shapes, Graphics, and Other Objects". You may insert a line from the Shapes selection, position it and make it any color you wish.

Jerry

Build a line chart,
build a stacked columns chart.
Then superpose them.

It would be useful to disable some feature of the upper one whose background would be set to none.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mardi 17 août 2010 18:25:31

Felix,

You may superimpose as many charts of different, or the same, types as you want. You just need to pay attention to the opacities of the Fills and Lines and the Arrangement, front to back (the stacking order).

I'll offer an opinion though. In your first post you asked for a "manual" technique. I believe that you will be best served by your first instinct, not by a more complicated arrangement.

Jerry

Felix N wrote:
The only option that seems to work is to have a bar graph/area graph and a line graph, none of which will do for me.

Felix,

Here's an overlay consisting of a Stacked Bar chart and a simple Bar Chart. The simple bar chart is in the back and serves to present the limit - the bar is teal and the background is red. I have positioned the small table that contains the data for the limit chart to serve as a limit label.



You can use graphic fill to further enhance the sense of the limit if you wish.

Jerry

Hello Barry

Don't worry, but the OP described the problem in a very different way in it's second message :

Is there another method off adding the line as *_a line graph_* onto my stacked column graph? Ideally I want to have a mixed chart-a stacked column and*_ line graph_* on the same axes. The only option that seems to work is to have a bar graph/area graph and a*_ line graph,_* none of which will do for me.

But maybe I understand wrongly.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mardi 17 août 2010 20:54:43

KOENIG Yvan wrote:
Hello Barry
Don't worry, but the OP described the problem in a very different way in it's second message :

Is there another method off adding the line as *_a line graph_* onto my stacked column graph? Ideally I want to have a mixed chart-a stacked column and*_ line graph_* on the same axes. The only option that seems to work is to have a bar graph/area graph and a*_ line graph,_* none of which will do for me.

But maybe I understand wrongly.

Hi Yvan,

I think you understood correctly. I read that part as well. The OP is correct—Numbers offers the option of a combination bar graph + line graph, but not the option of a combination stacked bar graph + line graph.

As noted, the illustration in my post was offered originally as a solution for a similar, but different issue. It may be possible to adapt it to the issue in this thread, but I'll await comment from the OP before taking on that adaptation.

Regards,
Barry

Here are two way which I use from time to time to display 'parallel' couples of values.



(1) one set use bars, the other use line chart

(2) both use bars but I apply a mirror effect to one of them.
I feel that this second formula is fine to judge the way the two series evolve.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) samedi 21 août 2010 16:45:48