Graphing irregular date/time on X-axis

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Level 1

25 points

Graphing irregular date/time on X-axis

This has been bothering me for eons and I still have not figured out how to do this correctly.

Often when I collect data, it comes with a date and/or time of when that data was measured. But when I then try to put this into a graph where the X-axis is meant to be a 'timeline' ... what I get is that each datapoint is spaced apart equally, rather than based on those date/time moments it was logged.

For example:

1/mar/2024: 15

5/mar/2024: 16

6/mar/2024: 15

The graph should be 6 intervals wide ... and on intervals 1, 5 and 6 there should be a datapoint with a line connecting them. But what I get is a graph that is 3 intervals wide, and a datapoint on each - again connected by a line.

How on earth do I make this happen?

Posted on Dec 12, 2024 2:41 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Yellowbox

Level 7

22,339 points

Dec 13, 2024 2:21 AM in response to robdejonge

Hi Rob,

robdejonge wrote:

For future readers: it's important to make sure (as noted above, but it took me a second to figure that out) that the column containing date/time data is *not* in a row/column marked as a header/footers.

Yes, it is not obvious that category graphs (line graphs and most others) require a Header Row/Column for the categories. Scatter Plots do not have categories, but have two variables (X and Y) and the data must be in Body cells.

I find that Template Chooser > Basic > Graphing Basics is a useful resource.

Keep posting in the Numbers forum!

Regards,

Ian.

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Answer 2

Yellowbox

Level 7

22,339 points

Dec 12, 2024 5:19 AM in response to robdejonge

Hi Rob,

You need a Scatter Plot

Labels are in a Header Row.

Data are all in body cells (not Header Column).

Regards,

Ian.

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Answer 3

robdejonge Author

Level 1

25 points

Dec 12, 2024 6:10 PM in response to Yellowbox

Thanks for your help! That resolved it for me.

For future readers: it's important to make sure (as noted above, but it took me a second to figure that out) that the column containing date/time data is *not* in a row/column marked as a header/footers. Once I made that change and used the right graph type, what I expected showed up.

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Graphing irregular date/time on X-axis

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