Hi,
I have a question here and can't seem to find the answer to. I'm
relatively new to excel charting and I have the following type of
chart I want to create based on the data seen below:

Time	Value	Line
1	20	a1
2	50	a1
3	40	a1
4	30	a1
5	50	a1
1	10	a2
2	30	a2
3	20	a2
4	10	a2
5	10	a2

Graph example:

60          (a1)
50    ^    /
40   /  \ /
30  / ^  v
20 - /  \_
10 _/     \_____ (a2)
   1  2  3  4  5


I want the chart to plot 2 lines (for a1, and a2, these two lines
should show up in the legend). They should be plotted next to each
other based on their respective data points.
The x-axis should contain the times (1-5) and the y-axis should
contain the values (range 10-60).

I want the graph to show up with the two lines showing their
individual data over the 1-5 time period. I can't figure out how to do
this in excel, or whether I need to write code to model the data
differently so it can be graphed.

If anyone has an idea it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
David

David..

Thank you for your question.  You can create a graph looking exactly
like your drawing.  Here are the step-by-step instructions.  These are
assuming the data in your spreadsheet looks like thisL



1) Choose an empty region on your sheet and either click the Charting
Icon or go to Insert > Chart

2) When the Chart Wizard comes up, on the left hand side there will be
a list of chart types.  Choose the third one down.  It says Line

3) When you choose line, on the right hand side there will be a
selection of choices.  Choose the first one pictured.  It will be in
the upper left hand corner of the sub-charts. When you click it, it
will darken.  Then hit Next

4) Step 2 of the Chart Wizard.  There are two tabs at the top, one
says Data Range, the other says Series.  Click Series.

5)  Click the button that says Add.  If you have the name of the first
series in your spreadsheet, you can click on it or simply type in the
name of the series in the blank field next to Name.

6) Now, click in the blank area next to Value.  It may have this in
it: ={1} If so, delete it so the field is empty.  Now, take your mouse
and click over the data for series 1 (in the above example, a1) and
holding the click, drag down until the the blinking, broken line has
encircled all of the data.  The Value field should now be populated
and an example graph will show in the Wizard.

7) Click Add again

8) Reapeat Step 5 and 6 again, except this time, use the data from
series a2.

9) Click Next.

10) Step 3 in the Wizard is where you can label your chart and your
axes.

11) Click Finish and your graph should be complete.

Thanks again for your question and I hope I have been able to help. 
If you need any additional clarification, please let me know.

Regards,

-THV

Search Strategy:
None

References:
None.  Tested answer in MS  Excel

---

Request for Answer Clarification by davidparks21-ga on 01 Jan 2003 22:00 PST

Hi, thanks for the quick answer. Actually, you did answer the question
now that I think of it that way, however I am looking for a slightly
better way of doing this. This requires that I sort the data by
{Value} and set up a series manually for each line I want a1, a2.
However in my actual data set there will be many lines (lets say 30
for example), this would get quite tedious. Now the next problem is
that my data set will also be changing frequently, making this pretty
much imposible if I had to do that much manual work every time I
entered a new set of data.

If you have any ideas on this let me know. I'd be happy doing any kind
of VBA needed, or whatever it takes to automate the process, or
modeling the data differently when I import it into excel (that's all
done automatically).

Thanks,
David

---

Clarification of Answer by tar_heel_v-ga on 02 Jan 2003 12:53 PST

David..

Seedy is correct.  What you are looking for now is a bit outside the
original scope of the question.  While VBA scripts are beyond my
knowledge, there are several Excel gurus here that would be more than
willing to help you out as long as the price of your question is in
line with what you are looking for.  For pricing tips, I recommend you
take a look at http://answers.google.com/answers/pricing.html

Thanks and good luck!

-THV

I understand, actually this helped push me to the answer I was looking
for. What I found was that I do indeed need to model the data
differently in order for the graph to pick it up automatically. I
wasn't sure if I simply didn't understand the graphing, and I could
set up excel to parse the data for me, or whether I needed to parse
the data myself and put it into the format excel was expecting. I am
finding the latter to be the case, that's pretty much what I needed,
so I'm moving on with the work.

Thanks!
Take care,
David

DavidParks21:

With all good intentions, please consider the following:

You seemed to have changed the mark a bit in your RFC particularly for
a question that is only valued at $2.00 which is $1.50 to the
researcher. You may wish to re-enter the question with your new
parameters after reviewing the pricing guidelines for such work. There
are several "expert" Excel design researchers who may consider the
question if the work to reward ratio is sufficient.

seedy