Re: [libreoffice-users] Calc chart x-axis labels

At 11:05 02/12/2014 -0700, Jerry Vonly Bonly wrote:
> I have a table containing data on my credit card. Left-most column 
> is the monthly statement dates, (oldest to newest, top to bottom) 
> which are not always the same. The next column to the right is the 
> monthly balance. When I create a Column Type chart from these two 
> columns of data, I have the balances as the Y data, and the dates as 
> the X column labels. For the X column labels, Calc always sets the 
> dates to the first day of the month, not the real (table) date.
>
> I have checked the "Format Axis..." settings, and on the Numbers 
> tab, "Source Format" is checked. I think this means that it is 
> supposed to set the x-axis labels to the format of the cells in the 
> table. But, this is not happening. All of the x-axis labels are set 
> to the first day of the month, i.e. 01/01/14, instead of 01/24/14 
> (the date in the table).
>
> I have tried all of the other chart types, none of them source the 
> dates correctly. Is this a bug, or am I missing something?

I think this is probably by design. When you plot a chart, you don't 
normally put individual data values on the axes, but merely label the 
axis with round, equally spaced values. Since your data is roughly 
monthly, having x-values labelled once per month sounds sensible. 
Note that the y-axis is not labelled with your actual balance amounts 
but likewise with suitably round, equally spaced values.

A column chart appears to set out the columns somewhat regularly, not 
exactly according to the x-value for each column. Perhaps that is 
because such charts are normally used for non-parametric statistics, 
where this makes sense. And you shouldn't really want your equally 
spaced columns to be labelled with unequally spaced vales.

So what can you do? One possibility is to use a chart of type "X-Y 
(Scatter)", where the x-axis labels will still be equally spaced, but 
the data points will be displaced into their appropriate place within 
each month. But I suspect a better solution, if you really want a 
column chart, is to label your columns with just the relevant month - 
discarding the day information. You can do this either by changing 
the format of your column of statement dates and keeping your "Source 
format" option, or - probably more sensibly - to keep the original 
dates showing in your table but to untick "Source format" in the 
x-Axis dialogue and set a suitable date format there. How about 
something like "MM/YY" (12/14) or "MMM YY" (Dec 14)?

Alternatively, you can use Insert Data Labels to create labels on the 
columns themselves. Use Format Data Labels... to adjust them; you can 
choose "Show category" to place the date values instead of the 
balance amounts on the columns. Format the dates as you wish (they 
inherit the Number format from the x-Axis dialogue), possibly 
rotating them to fit the columns. Once you have the data labels as 
you want them - perhaps "D MMM YYYY" (2 Dec 2014) - you can choose to 
delete the x-axis entirely, so you just have columns labelled with 
the actual dates.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker


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