data series and axis labels

[Guest]

I will try my best to ask this question in a way that makes sense-

I have a line chart showing monthly sales. My X axis is labeled Jan - Dec
and my data series is the sales by month. I have figures for Jan Feb Mar and
Apr but since May - Dec are at $0 my chart currently shows a straight line
down from Apr to May.

Is it possible to stop the line at April yet keep the axis showing Jan - Dec?

Thanks!

 

[Del Cotter]

I have a line chart showing monthly sales. My X axis is labeled Jan - Dec
and my data series is the sales by month. I have figures for Jan Feb Mar and
Apr but since May - Dec are at $0 my chart currently shows a straight line
down from Apr to May.

Is it possible to stop the line at April yet keep the axis showing Jan - Dec?

Yes, but I think you'll have to make the sales cells for May to December
really actually blank to stop the line appearing. Fill the cells in as
the year goes on with the real sales figures.

If you are using the same data to present a table, and the table has to
have actual zeroes, then have a separate table display from the graph
data.

There are other ways to achieve this (for instance, named ranges and the
ever-useful OFFSET function) but they're a bit fiddly and not very
time-efficient for busy people who just need to present a sales graph
each month.

 

[David Biddulph]

Fill your May to December cells with =NA(), rather than blank or zero, then
they won't show up as zeroes on the chart. If you don't want the N/A# to
show up on your sheet, you can hide them with conditional formatting (set
font colour the same as the background colour).