Thickness of error bars

I want to combine a histogram with an xy graph, but the only possibilities are either to combine a bar-graph with a line graph or to combine an xy-graph with y-error bars.

Neither is very good for my purpose, but the latter is the least bad, and I try to improve by chosing the thickest possible line for the error bar. I wonder if it were possible to make those errorbars even broader - perhaps as broad as a histogram bar?

NSV

NSV -

You may get more assistance if you explain what the end result should look
like.

It is quite possible to combine a Column chart type (vertical bars usually
used for a histogram) with an XY (Scatter) chart type. An example is the
Better Histogram available at www.treeplan.com, where the XY (Scatter) is
used to label the horizontal axis.

- Mike
www.mikemiddleton.com

"nsv" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> I want to combine a histogram with an xy graph, but the only
> possibilities are either to combine a bar-graph with a line graph or to
> combine an xy-graph with y-error bars.
>
> Neither is very good for my purpose, but the latter is the least bad,
> and I try to improve by chosing the thickest possible line for the
> error bar. I wonder if it were possible to make those errorbars even
> broader - perhaps as broad as a histogram bar?
>
> NSV
>
>
> --
> nsv
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> nsv's Profile:
> http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=26500
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=555987
>

NSV -

Your attachment does not show up in the microsoft.public.excel.charting
newsgroup where I am reading your messages, and I would not usually open an
attachment, anyway.

An excellent source for information about combination charts is

http://www.peltiertech.com/Excel/Charts/index.html

- Mike
www.mikemiddleton.com

"nsv" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> Thanks Mike, an add-in that someone had bothered to make was exactly
> what I had hoped for, I just didn't know where to find it, and I can't
> make such things myself.
> I couldn't see right away if it solves my problem, but I will download
> and then hopefully it works.
>
> I would like to attach a spreadsheet to illustrate the problem, but
> this is for some reason not possible, so I attach a picture in stead.
> The upper graph is a pure xy-type where I can choose an arbitrary
> number of points to get a smooth line, but the vertical histogram
> representation must be made with errorbars and they are too thin to
> give a good picture
> The bottom graph is a combined bar/line type where the linear
> normaldistribution curve gets very clumsy because of the low number of
> points it must interpolate.
>
>
> +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
> |Filename: Statsample.JPG |
> |Download: http://www.excelforum.com/attachment.php?postid=4949 |
> +-------------------------------------------------------------------+
>
> --
> nsv
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> nsv's Profile:
> http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=26500
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=555987
>

I'm writing this in www.excelforum.com where the attachment appears perfectly, and I don't know how to reach you the other way.

The task is to illustrate the statistical result of a number of measurements. The standard way is to show the actual measured values as discreete bars and the estimated normal-distribution as an overlaid continuous line. All statistics programs do this routinely, but I would like to do it in Excel.

I understand perfectly the feeling about attachments. This attachment is a .jpg picture, and I suppose such files are pretty safe. Anyway it says a lot more than I can describe with words.

The Peltier pages are excellent, but I have not found a solution to this problem.

I'm afraid the combination chart is out of question because the task requires a large amount of x-values to smooth the line part of the graph, but the numbers of bars is usually low. The combination chart can not operate with different number of x's as the xy-chart can. A way to manipulate the width of the y-errorbars would be ideal, if it only were possible.

On Thu, 29 Jun 2006, in microsoft.public.excel.charting,
nsv <[email protected]> said:

>The task is to illustrate the statistical result of a number of
>measurements. The standard way is to show the actual measured values as
>discreete bars and the estimated normal-distribution as an overlaid
>continuous line. All statistics programs do this routinely, but I would
>like to do it in Excel.

>I'm afraid the combination chart is out of question because the task
>requires a large amount of x-values to smooth the line part of the
>graph, but the numbers of bars is usually low. The combination chart
>can not operate with different number of x's as the xy-chart can.

What you have to do is make it a combination, not of a column series and
a line series, but a column series and a scatter series.

This is perfectly feasible; if you've already got your line series set
up, click on it and select "Chart Type". That will let you turn just
that series into a scatter graph. Now you can put as many points on the
bell curve as you need to make it look smooth.

--
Del Cotter
NB Personal replies to this post will send email to [email protected],
which goes to a spam folder-- please send your email to del3 instead.

On Thu, 29 Jun 2006, in microsoft.public.excel.charting,
nsv <[email protected]> said:

>Thanks Del, but it does not work.
>
>47.4 0 0.002941166
>47.6 1 0.077203612
>47.8 7 0.666342319
>48 18 1.891031666
>48.2 13 1.764581964
>48.4 5 0.541410283
>48.6 1 0.054620138
>48.8 0 0.001811844
>
>This is my data. First column is the x-axis labels, second is the
>y-values for the bars (or y-error bars) and third is y-values for the
>continuous line.
>
>The line and bar graph use the row number for x-value. If I combine the
>bar and the xy-scatter line they will not overlap as they should. The
>second column wil be put in x= 1 to 8 while the third column values
>will lie around 48-point-something.

After you've made one column and one scatter range, there are three
things you still need to do. First, go into the format dialogue of the
category axis (the one for the column range), and uncheck the box marked
"Value (Y) crosses between categories".

Secondly, go into the dialogue for the Secondary value axis (the one for
the scatter range), and manually set the minimum and maximum to 47.4 and
48.8 respectively. Now the axes for the column and scatter ranges match
each other.

Finally, create a new x and y range on your spreadsheet for the scatter
range, so it doesn't have to line up with the column range any more. Now
you are free to create interpolated values:

Hist
47.4 0
47.6 1
47.8 7
48.0 18
48.2 13
48.4 5
48.6 1
48.8 0

curve
47.4 0.00294117
47.5 0.008
47.6 0.07720361
47.7 0.300
47.8 0.66634232
47.9 1.200
48.0 1.89103167
48.1 2.000
48.2 1.76458196
48.3 1.000
48.4 0.54141028
48.5 0.200
48.6 0.05462014
48.7 0.003
48.8 0.00181184

I made those ones by hand and eye, so they're probably not very smooth,
and you'll want to calculate a smoother curve yourself.

--
Del Cotter
NB Personal replies to this post will send email to [email protected],
which goes to a spam folder-- please send your email to del3 instead.

On Thu, 29 Jun 2006, in microsoft.public.excel.charting,
Del Cotter <[email protected]> said:

>After you've made one column and one scatter range, there are three
>things you still need to do. First, go into the format dialogue of the
>category axis (the one for the column range), and uncheck the box marked
>"Value (Y) crosses between categories".
>
>Secondly, go into the dialogue for the Secondary value axis (the one for
>the scatter range), and manually set the minimum and maximum to 47.4 and
>48.8 respectively. Now the axes for the column and scatter ranges match
>each other.
>
>Finally, create a new x and y range on your spreadsheet for the scatter
>range, so it doesn't have to line up with the column range any more. Now
>you are free to create interpolated values:

Here's an example of the finished chart:

http://www.branta.demon.co.uk/science/barcurve.xls

>I made those ones by hand and eye, so they're probably not very smooth,
>and you'll want to calculate a smoother curve yourself.

--
Del Cotter
NB Personal replies to this post will send email to [email protected],
which goes to a spam folder-- please send your email to del3 instead.

It works now, great!!

It's the first time I'm down that "road" in Excel, but then - this is what these fora are for, isn't it?

Thanks for help, this problem has annoyed me for ages, and I had to design other clumsy solutions to get the message out, so I really appreciate it.

NSV