Re: [libreoffice-users] Calc charts, data in record form

At 10:37 24/07/2014 -0400, Dave Boland wrote:
> ... I need to do some charts, and I have not figured out how to get 
> Calc to give me what I want, so I need a pointer or two.  I want 
> line charts, with multiple curves per axis (up to 8).  Perhaps 
> something like this: http://www.indiabix.com/data-interpretation/line-charts/
>
> The data is arranged in record format like this:
>
> Date      Location  Temperature    Humidity
> --------- --------- -------------- ---------
> 7/1/14    Syracuse              71       79%
> 7/1/14    Albany                68       70%
> 7/1/14    Rochester             69       70%
> 7/8/14    Syracuse              82       68%
> 7/8/14    Albany                79       67%
> 7/8/14    Rochester             75       66%
>
> So how do I end up with one chart that shows three curves for the 
> three cities over time (Location and Date on the X-axis, Temperature 
> on the Y-axis)?

Er, you presumably want just the date on the horizontal axis, with 
locations represented by separate lines.

What you need to do is to assemble a table in an appropriate fashion 
for a chart to be possible. You will probably want four columns - for 
dates and the three locations - with the temperature values in the 
body of the table. That way, there would be one row for each date. 
Creating the chart from this would be simple.

So how to achieve that table? Well, one way would be simply to enter 
the data that way in the first place. However the data arises, it may 
be most convenient to massage it into the required form as you enter 
it. Note that the way you are currently entering data, you have each 
date entered three times and each location very many times. That's 
never a good idea. How many weeks before you enter "Sryacuse" by mistake?

Alternatively, you can simply extract what you need from your 
existing table into the required one. Your date column would be 
entered manually or - better if appropriate - filled down from the 
first two weeks' dates. The body of the table would then have 
formulae which retrieved the appropriate data from the original 
table. You might be able to do this using the VLOOKUP() function, but 
it won't be simple, as you have two conditions to search for: date 
and location. The simplest solution might be to sort your original 
table by location (or you could enter the data into three tables in 
the first place), and then to use VLOOKUP() to search for the 
appropriate date and harvest the temperature value from within just 
the relevant part of the original table - that now containing the 
values for each location.

It's probably very much easier if you create three tables in the 
first place - one for each location.

> http://www.fastmail.fm - Does exactly what it says on the tin

Really? So it sends your mail more quickly than other systems? Wow!

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker


--
To unsubscribe e-mail to: users+unsubscribe@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted