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Plotting X-axis data from multiple tables

I have three tables with two columns each (price & date) and a chart in Numbers '09. My Y-axis data has properly plotted prices in a linear chart. I want to plot the x-axis with dates. Each price has its own date. The problem is the chart seems to plot dates for only one table rather than all.

The range of all dates are 4/1 to 10/1. But I may only get dates for 9/1-10/1, depending on which table I choose. Yet, I still see prices plotted from before 9/1. How can I get dates sync'd with prices so the x-axis displays 4/1 to 10/1?

MacBook Pro Aluminum 2010, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Oct 3, 2010 11:17 AM

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3 replies

Oct 3, 2010 1:06 PM in response to 4thSpace

I am assuming you have the dates in a header column (A) and the prices in column B and you are not using the scatter chart. The category charts (the non-scatter charts) don't really care what the x-axis data is, the x data are labels/categories and are all evenly spaced on the axis. If you chart one series, it will create some categories in the chart's x axis. If you then add another series to the chart, it will use the categories from the first series until it runs out of categories and then it will append a few more categories to the chart.

If all your tables use the same dates in the same rows, your data will appear correctly on the chart. This assumes that your dates are all firsts of the months. If you have randomly spaced dates, the scatter chart is the only way to chart it out correctly in time.

Alternatively, if you move your dates to column B and prices to column C (the X and Y data must all be in the data area of the table, not in a header) then use the scatter chart, it will plot them as you want them. The default for the scatter chart is to plot data points without connecting lines. You can connect the dots by selecting the chart, going to the chart inspector, and choosing straight or curved connecting lines. One problem you may run into is that the X axis might not all be the firsts of the months because the spacing between gridlines is determined by days, not months, and there are varying numbers of days in each month. It might be possible to get it that way but it can be difficult.

EDIT: I switched the order of preference of these two solutions to have the scatter chart as an alternative rather then the primary solution because the scatter chart x-axis labels can be difficult when it is dates.

Message was edited by: Badunit

Plotting X-axis data from multiple tables

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