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Too many markers on line chart makes it a thick line and individual markers cannot be seen

  1. #1
    denzel
    Guest

    Too many markers on line chart makes it a thick line and individual markers cannot be seen

    I have lots of data to be plotted and when I choose a marker to be
    displayed, the resultant line just looks like a thicker line. You can't
    individually pick out the marker being used. Without messing with the input
    data, is there any way to get Excel to place a marker every 10th or 20th
    data point instead of every data point?

    I still want the line to plot the entire data. And I don't want to have to
    manipulate my source data. If I only plot every 10th data point, I may miss
    peaks that occur between the 10th points. And it's too cumbersome to pick
    the data by hand out of the hundreds of data points.

    I want to continue to use markers instead of colors or dashed lines to
    differential my graphed lines.

    Smaller symbols won't help since the data is so closely plotted together.

    Is there some easy solution to this?

    Thanks.



  2. #2
    Bernard Liengme
    Guest

    Re: Too many markers on line chart makes it a thick line and individual markers cannot be seen

    You can achieve the required result by plotting every tenth (for example)
    data point
    Suppose the y-values are in B2:B1001 with label in B1
    In C2 enter =IF(MOD(row(),10)=0,B2,NA())
    Copy down to C1001
    Select the x-values (A1:A1001), hold CTRL and select the new y-values
    (C1:C1002) and make the chart
    best wishes
    --
    Bernard V Liengme
    www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
    remove caps from email

    "denzel" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    news:[email protected]...
    >I have lots of data to be plotted and when I choose a marker to be
    >displayed, the resultant line just looks like a thicker line. You can't
    >individually pick out the marker being used. Without messing with the
    >input data, is there any way to get Excel to place a marker every 10th or
    >20th data point instead of every data point?
    >
    > I still want the line to plot the entire data. And I don't want to have
    > to manipulate my source data. If I only plot every 10th data point, I may
    > miss peaks that occur between the 10th points. And it's too cumbersome to
    > pick the data by hand out of the hundreds of data points.
    >
    > I want to continue to use markers instead of colors or dashed lines to
    > differential my graphed lines.
    >
    > Smaller symbols won't help since the data is so closely plotted together.
    >
    > Is there some easy solution to this?
    >
    > Thanks.
    >




  3. #3
    denzel
    Guest

    Re: Too many markers on line chart makes it a thick line and individual markers cannot be seen

    Nope, as stated in my original post, I can't get by with only plotting every
    10 data points because I won't be graphing all the points of interest (e.g.,
    a peak may occur at point 25 and it wouldn't show on the graph). And I
    don't want to hand pick each one I need.

    I'm looking at doing this without manipulating my source data.

    I could do what you suggest and plot the original data as a line with no
    markers and then plot the new data with markers and no lines, but then my
    legend would have an additional entry for just the marker graph, and the
    original entry in the legend wouldn't be represented correctly (no marker).

    I could manually add a few markers by hand, but then if my data were to
    change, the markers wouldn't necessary be on the new line (and Excel has a
    problem with printing objects in the same location as shown on the screen.

    So I'm looking for more of a automatic way of doing this.


    "Bernard Liengme" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    news:[email protected]...
    > You can achieve the required result by plotting every tenth (for example)
    > data point
    > Suppose the y-values are in B2:B1001 with label in B1
    > In C2 enter =IF(MOD(row(),10)=0,B2,NA())
    > Copy down to C1001
    > Select the x-values (A1:A1001), hold CTRL and select the new y-values
    > (C1:C1002) and make the chart
    > best wishes
    > --
    > Bernard V Liengme
    > www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
    > remove caps from email
    >
    > "denzel" <[email protected]> wrote in message
    > news:[email protected]...
    >>I have lots of data to be plotted and when I choose a marker to be
    >>displayed, the resultant line just looks like a thicker line. You can't
    >>individually pick out the marker being used. Without messing with the
    >>input data, is there any way to get Excel to place a marker every 10th or
    >>20th data point instead of every data point?
    >>
    >> I still want the line to plot the entire data. And I don't want to have
    >> to manipulate my source data. If I only plot every 10th data point, I
    >> may miss peaks that occur between the 10th points. And it's too
    >> cumbersome to pick the data by hand out of the hundreds of data points.
    >>
    >> I want to continue to use markers instead of colors or dashed lines to
    >> differential my graphed lines.
    >>
    >> Smaller symbols won't help since the data is so closely plotted together.
    >>
    >> Is there some easy solution to this?
    >>
    >> Thanks.
    >>

    >
    >




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