Thread: A Buggy Chart

AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THIS IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have this buggy chart. I have a spread sheet that I'm using to keep track
of my electric bill history. I have a Date column (statement/bill date), a
Month column (formula driven on the Date column), a Year Column, and a
Current Charges column (along with a lot of other detail columns). I have
the Auto Filter turned on and I use the Month and Year columns for
filtering.

I am trying to chart the Total Monthly Amount (Current Charges) by months on
a basic Column Chart. I can show the whole history on the chart, or I can
chart all months in one year, or one month in all years by using the
filtering described above.

The problem I'm having is when ever Sept '03 is showing on the chart, the
chart is not drawn correctly: instead of columns in my column chart for the
amount, I get a very thin line and the time series on the x-axis is screwy.
By filtering through the years, the '02, '04, and '05 charts are perfect
(columns, time series on the x-axis, and even the labels on the x-axis); '03
is as described above. By filtering through the months, all months are
perfect (columns, time series, and labels); September is kind of screwy as
described earlier, but I actually have columns this time, although my time
series is screwy: instead of getting only three units (three tick-marks) on
my x-axis (like I get with all of my other months), I get 25 units with
values in only three of them (the first one, the last one, and the middle
one).

When I first created this file a year or two ago, I think Sept '03 was the
last month I stopped at, and I didn't touch it again until this last
weekend. Also, I didn't have the Sept '03 electric bill, so some of the
amounts were estimated with formulas. But I have tried replacing the
formulas with values (no difference) and I tried deleting the whole row
containing 9-03 (no difference--except that 9-03 was no longer in there to
graph). Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully we can
fix this w/o me having recreating the whole file and reentering the data.

I'm using Office XP (Excel 2002) with Win XP Pro (incase that helps). If
anyone wants the file to mess with, I am willing to attach it to a
post/email.

Thanks for any help anyone can provide,

Conan Kelly

ps. Just sitting here thinking about things while I'm writing this, I'm
certain that Excel has been updated several times (and probably with one or
two major updates) between when I created it a couple years ago and when I
got back into it last weekend. I'm wondering if the updates could be
causing the screwyness.

Conan,

I'm not sure what you're describing. But check the x axis. Chart -
Options - Axes. Try setting the x axis to Category instead of Automatic or
Time-scale.

Failing that, tell us exactly how the date column is formatted (Format -
Cells - Number - Custom -- give us the code), and what exactly shows up in
the cells for that Sept 03 date, and some others.
--
Earl Kiosterud
www.smokeylake.com

"Conan Kelly" <CTBarbarin at msn dot com> wrote in message
news:%23tImBL1sFHA.2492@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> THIS IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> I have this buggy chart. I have a spread sheet that I'm using to keep
> track of my electric bill history. I have a Date column (statement/bill
> date), a Month column (formula driven on the Date column), a Year Column,
> and a Current Charges column (along with a lot of other detail columns).
> I have the Auto Filter turned on and I use the Month and Year columns for
> filtering.
>
> I am trying to chart the Total Monthly Amount (Current Charges) by months
> on a basic Column Chart. I can show the whole history on the chart, or I
> can chart all months in one year, or one month in all years by using the
> filtering described above.
>
> The problem I'm having is when ever Sept '03 is showing on the chart, the
> chart is not drawn correctly: instead of columns in my column chart for
> the amount, I get a very thin line and the time series on the x-axis is
> screwy. By filtering through the years, the '02, '04, and '05 charts are
> perfect (columns, time series on the x-axis, and even the labels on the
> x-axis); '03 is as described above. By filtering through the months, all
> months are perfect (columns, time series, and labels); September is kind
> of screwy as described earlier, but I actually have columns this time,
> although my time series is screwy: instead of getting only three units
> (three tick-marks) on my x-axis (like I get with all of my other months),
> I get 25 units with values in only three of them (the first one, the last
> one, and the middle one).
>
> When I first created this file a year or two ago, I think Sept '03 was the
> last month I stopped at, and I didn't touch it again until this last
> weekend. Also, I didn't have the Sept '03 electric bill, so some of the
> amounts were estimated with formulas. But I have tried replacing the
> formulas with values (no difference) and I tried deleting the whole row
> containing 9-03 (no difference--except that 9-03 was no longer in there to
> graph). Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully we
> can fix this w/o me having recreating the whole file and reentering the
> data.
>
> I'm using Office XP (Excel 2002) with Win XP Pro (incase that helps). If
> anyone wants the file to mess with, I am willing to attach it to a
> post/email.
>
> Thanks for any help anyone can provide,
>
> Conan Kelly
>
> ps. Just sitting here thinking about things while I'm writing this, I'm
> certain that Excel has been updated several times (and probably with one
> or two major updates) between when I created it a couple years ago and
> when I got back into it last weekend. I'm wondering if the updates could
> be causing the screwyness.
>

"Conan Kelly" <CTBarbarin at msn dot com> wrote in message
news:%23tImBL1sFHA.2492@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> THIS IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> I have this buggy chart. I have a spread sheet that I'm using to keep
> track of my electric bill history. I have a Date column (statement/bill
> date), a Month column (formula driven on the Date column), a Year Column,
> and a Current Charges column (along with a lot of other detail columns).
> I have the Auto Filter turned on and I use the Month and Year columns for
> filtering.
>
> I am trying to chart the Total Monthly Amount (Current Charges) by months
> on a basic Column Chart. I can show the whole history on the chart, or I
> can chart all months in one year, or one month in all years by using the
> filtering described above.
>
> The problem I'm having is when ever Sept '03 is showing on the chart, the
> chart is not drawn correctly: instead of columns in my column chart for
> the amount, I get a very thin line and the time series on the x-axis is
> screwy. By filtering through the years, the '02, '04, and '05 charts are
> perfect (columns, time series on the x-axis, and even the labels on the
> x-axis); '03 is as described above. By filtering through the months, all
> months are perfect (columns, time series, and labels); September is kind
> of screwy as described earlier, but I actually have columns this time,
> although my time series is screwy: instead of getting only three units
> (three tick-marks) on my x-axis (like I get with all of my other months),
> I get 25 units with values in only three of them (the first one, the last
> one, and the middle one).
>
> When I first created this file a year or two ago, I think Sept '03 was the
> last month I stopped at, and I didn't touch it again until this last
> weekend. Also, I didn't have the Sept '03 electric bill, so some of the
> amounts were estimated with formulas. But I have tried replacing the
> formulas with values (no difference) and I tried deleting the whole row
> containing 9-03 (no difference--except that 9-03 was no longer in there to
> graph). Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully we
> can fix this w/o me having recreating the whole file and reentering the
> data.
>
> I'm using Office XP (Excel 2002) with Win XP Pro (incase that helps). If
> anyone wants the file to mess with, I am willing to attach it to a
> post/email.
>
> Thanks for any help anyone can provide,
>
> Conan Kelly
>
> ps. Just sitting here thinking about things while I'm writing this, I'm
> certain that Excel has been updated several times (and probably with one
> or two major updates) between when I created it a couple years ago and
> when I got back into it last weekend. I'm wondering if the updates could
> be causing the screwyness.
>

OOPS! Sorry! That was an accident.

What I was trying to do was say that I'm going to attach my spreadsheet so
you all can mess with it. It is kinda difficult to understand what I'm
describing w/o being able to see it for yourself.

I hope it is okay to attach files in this NG.

Check out the chart unfiltered first (all months & all years). Then filter
through the years one at a time. You'll see what I'm talking about with
2003. Then show all years and go through the months one at a time. You'll
see issues with Sept.

Any help will be greatly appreciated,

Conan Kelly

Sorry for all of this. I sent this once and got an error. I tried again
and got another error. I tried a third time and it went through. Hope I
don't get yelled at for attaching files