Plotting & Smoothing Linear Inflection Points

**dtsmith96** · 04-05-2021, 12:55 PM

I need to fix the attached photo. I'm looking to straighten the circled area (with a linear trendline?), rather than have it temporarily increase, decrease, then increase again.

**AliGW** · 04-05-2021, 12:58 PM

Welcome to the forum.

Excel 2008??? Do you mean MS 365?

We won't be able to work with a photo, so don't bother with that. There are instructions at the top of the page explaining how to attach your sample workbook.

**dtsmith96** · 04-05-2021, 01:29 PM

Thank you for the guidance! The issue I'm running into is the inflection point between 3/23/20 & 3/31/21. You'll see the initial increase, then a sharp decline, then another increase. How can I smooth that line?

**MrShorty** · 04-05-2021, 03:58 PM

I'm not sure what to recommend. The chart itself is not going to do this -- the chart simply shows what is in the spreadsheet. And I don't see anything in the spreadsheet to indicate what values you would rather use for the chart. Basically, I would expect to replace/overwrite the offending values in the spreadsheet with values that you like better. I'm not sure how you would like to approach that, but that's what I would expect -- by hook or crook change the values in the spreadsheet and the chart will follow.

How would you like to move forward? Overwrite values in the existing data, or make a copy of the data so the original data are not lost?