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excel is ignoring piece of a table when trying to make a chart
Ana Ng
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm using excel 2013 in a math class to graph limits.
I make a table of values, and then I'm supposed to make a chart. The table would look something like this (x values on the left, y values on the right)
-2.99, 1
2.01, 3
.01, 4
3.50, 8
6, 8.5
6.12, 9.01
I've been instructed specifically to make sure to leave a gap in the table, because the charts should have a gap... now the pickle I'm finding myself in is that when I select the table and hit the button to make the chart, it is ignoring the top 3 x values (-2.99, 2.01, .01). I thought at first it was ignoring only negative values but now I've realized it's just not using any of the data from the X side on the upper part of the table, no matter if the value is positive or negative.
I've checked the settings for the chart and it's supposed to treat empty cells as gaps in the graph.
The first time this happened my professor had no clue why and I had to redo the entire table and formula and for whatever reason that fixed it. I really can't keep doing that for every assignment though, I just need this to work the way it's supposed to. Does anyone have a clue what is going on here?
edit: forum formatting won't keep the spaces so I've put comma's in between X and Y values, however in excel they are each in their own cell with no comma.
I make a table of values, and then I'm supposed to make a chart. The table would look something like this (x values on the left, y values on the right)
-2.99, 1
2.01, 3
.01, 4
3.50, 8
6, 8.5
6.12, 9.01
I've been instructed specifically to make sure to leave a gap in the table, because the charts should have a gap... now the pickle I'm finding myself in is that when I select the table and hit the button to make the chart, it is ignoring the top 3 x values (-2.99, 2.01, .01). I thought at first it was ignoring only negative values but now I've realized it's just not using any of the data from the X side on the upper part of the table, no matter if the value is positive or negative.
I've checked the settings for the chart and it's supposed to treat empty cells as gaps in the graph.
The first time this happened my professor had no clue why and I had to redo the entire table and formula and for whatever reason that fixed it. I really can't keep doing that for every assignment though, I just need this to work the way it's supposed to. Does anyone have a clue what is going on here?
edit: forum formatting won't keep the spaces so I've put comma's in between X and Y values, however in excel they are each in their own cell with no comma.
Ana Ng on
0
Posts
One thing I am wondering, but did not mess around with, is if you are reusing a spread sheet from an earlier assignment or from messing around with a blank page and changed the formatting of those 3 cells. This might of caused the chart to ignore those 3 points because of formatting differences, but they would still be selected part of the chart and then when you deleted everything it reset the format of those 3 cells.
PaD id - 346,240,298
Marvel FF - Lil bill12
if I select the top and bottom together using the ctrl key to skip the gap, it will graph it correctly. Same if I delete the gap, it will graph correctly. I checked the settings again and it's supposed to just ignore the empty cells so I don't understand why it trips Excel up so much.
Yeah I think it's because we're graphing limits, and need to see the gap in graph I suppose. I ended up having to take the empty cells out anyway in order to make the graph even work at all.
I don't know how to do this without using a scatter plot, though. If that's what's happening, you need to make sure you x-values are sorted before you add the lines.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(-2.99,+1),+(2.01,+3),+(.01,+4),+(3.50,+8),+(6,+8.5),+(6.12,+9.01)
edit:
Well, I don't have my graphing calculator with me, but my question still stands why not use the real thing. I will leave the link above, but it is interpreting the data funny.
Edit 2:
Oh, silly me, the x axis isn't at 0.
I ended up sort of getting a work around by selecting each half of the table individually and making the graph... it wasn't perfect but it was close enough for me to get the data I needed. I actually am bringing in the laptop I'm using to another professor who apparently is an excel whiz, so hopefully he can figure it out. In any case I -think- that for now I don't have to use Excel any more to make graphs
@Pacificstar here ya go: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e5vzywfvhwr5q8k/MacDonald - Limits.xlsx?dl=0
One thought, are you "formatting as table" your tables?
http://www.accountingweb-cgi.com/editorial/excel102909/1.jpg
if you don't know icon to do such, above is example. I know that makes excel think of things in complete different ways. Another thought, as I haven't looked at sheet yet, are you displaying zero's? I think this is a pivot table thing, but might be something that is getting turned on by default. A blank cell is a zero, if you have hide zeros, it will skip that value and hook the 2. I know with limits, it isn't a zero, but that is best I can think for excel default value, it doesn't understand undefined.