Leap Year

[Ralph Page]

I often chart data that spans several years and I haven't found a
method to have the x axis (date) accommodate leap years so the grid
will correspond to Jan 1 in each year. These charts are always XY
charts.

So far I have just selected 365 as the major unit and lived with it.

It would seem a logical chart option for XY charts would include
months or years rather than a specific number of days. Is that
feature available in a spot I haven't found yet?

I'm using Excel 2002.

Thanks

 

[Guest]

To properly capture the leap year, I would suggest using modifying the chart
to a Line chart as opposed to an XY Scatter chart as Line charts give you
much more control over the dates. By combining chart types, you can
incorporate the XY chart with the Line chart to give you the features of both.

Below are some references that address the differences between XY Scatter
charts and Line charts . . . the major difference is how they treat the data
on the X Axis.

http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=190

http://peltiertech.com/Excel/ChartsHowTo/CatVsValueAxis.html

 

[Jon Peltier]

To follow up, use Days as the X axis base unit, use some number of months or
1 year as the major unit, and use 1-Jan-SomeYear as the minimum.

- Jon

 

[Ralph Page]

Thanks to Jon and John.
I reviewed the information on the links.
I converted the graph to a line graph and used the units suggested and
it appears to work fine.