Line graph:water tank levels

**gwmbox** · 01-05-2011, 09:33 AM

Hi all, first time poster and first time user of Excel Forum.... nice site and it seems like a very popular one so hopefully someone can help me

Attached is a sample of an excel document I have which I use to record our water tank levels through out the year. I am having a problem however getting the graph to work properly.

The data is not much yet but it will grow each year of course, So far I only have the last couple of months in 2009, all of 2010 and now the first entry for 2011.

The problem is the date line in that the 2009 line for example is seen to the left where it should be to the right, as in November December, but it shows up on the graph in January and February,

How do I fix that, how do I get it so that I can have a single line graph for each year with its own line in the correct position.

Not sure if my explanation means much and I cannot post images here for whatever reason to highlight the issue, but hopefully if you can open the attachment and see the graph you will know what I mean.

Please teach me what the solution is rather than just give me the solution, I'd like to learn how to fix it

Thanks

GW

**Andy Pope** · 01-05-2011, 10:47 AM

You need to change the layout of your data for charting.

First column should include all dates. You can stack 2010 and 2011 dates under 2009s.
2nd column should contain Level for 2009 corresponding to the dates in the first column.
3rd column should contain Level for 2010 corresponding to the dates in the first column.
4th column should contain Level for 2011 corresponding to the dates in the first column.

**gwmbox** · 01-05-2011, 12:11 PM

So what about the fact that the dates may differ throughout the year to the dates used in the previous year? Do I start a column with every date of the year? Then register the data next to the relevant date when I get around to checking the levels?

Cheers

GW

**Andy Pope** · 01-05-2011, 12:27 PM

If you use a date axis rather than category axis then the position of each data point will be correctly reflected.

See attached for new layout and chart.