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

On Thu, Jul 24, 2014, at 12:33 PM, Brian Barker wrote:
> At 10:37 24/07/2014 -0400, Dave Boland wrote:

> 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.
Brian,

Thanks for the insight.  The way the data is set up is legacy in that it
is from a form used previously.  The intent was to create database-like
records where data from 12 cities is updated each week.  To help
eliminate entry mistakes, I use validation so Syracuse never becomes
something else.

I have made some progress playing with chart settings, but still not
where I need to be.  I will give the lookup functions a try.

Dave,
-- 
  dave boland
  dboland9@fastmail.fm

-- 
http://www.fastmail.fm - Access your email from home and the web


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