[Solved] Scale in Charts

[TonyV17]

In open Office 3.1.0, when working in Calc, I seem not to be able to adjust the scale of the x axis in a graph. It appears to be fixed because all the possible choices are greyed out.

How do I get it back so that I can adjust the scale of the x axis? The content of the X axis is dates, but I would like to give a better spread than is given by the locked Automatic FORMAT.

Thanks

TonyV

PS.As an adjunct to the above, I saw somewhere, when I was trying to resolve the problem a "From source" checkbox, but can not find it now. Where is it and would that help to alleviate the problem above?

[Villeroy]

Change the chart type from line chart (discrete text values) to x/y-scatter (numeric scale).

[acknak]

Is your chart an X-Y chart type? You can't adjust the axis scale unless it is.

As for manually changing the axis scale, did you first uncheck "automatic"? Once that's done, then the min/max items can be changed.

[TonyV17]

Villeroy, I have tried the scatter chart and that is worse than the line x/y graph. The dates end up from 31/12/1899 to 25/01/1900. When I uncheck the Automatic, and put dates that cover up to 30 Aug 2009, I lose all the graph. So I have to revert back to the line x/y.

acknak, I cannot uncheck the auto bit. That can only be done when in scatter graph mode, and as said earlier, I end up with a lemon.

All I am trying to do is show a series of values on the Y axis and the current values on the X axis against the dates. It is a graph of some investments that should be able to give me a view of how far they are from that that has been invested at any point in time. I have used as a basis the dates from 04/11/2008 to whenever, though in this system, since I have to use a date, I have tried to use 30/08/2009.

Surely it can't be that difficult to organise such a graph of the investment performance!!

Thanks

TonyV

[Villeroy]

Your dates are text values.

[TonyV17]

Villeroy, that being the case, why do they show as dates when in the Scatter mode, albeit way back when, yet it won't accept dates that I type in after unchecking the automatic bit? I seem to be missing something in the logic of the way this system is working! It is showing the date in the x axis as 18 Dec 99, when in the box for the information it is shown as 18/12/1899. Somewhere along the line a conversion is taking place! Do I have to convert the date to the date number codes? (In which case I shan't bother!)

Cheers

TonyV

[Villeroy]

Spreadsheets do not have dates as distinct data type. Any number can be shown as date and any date can be formatted in any other way. The numeric value of a text may evaluate to zero, which is 1899-12-30 (day zero on the time scale).
18/12/1899 is the number -12 formatted as date. Remove the number format or test with =VALUE(A1) [assumed number in A1]

[TonyV17]

Villeroy, Thanks for your help. I will not bother with any scaling of the dates. I will just take them as they are and put up with it. I'll use the Line graph and take the dates and values, verbatim, from the table I create from the information gained from the performance of the investments. (In other words, I am back where I started from!!)

I'll close this out now.

Cheers

TonyV

[david7365]

I came here because I simply wanted to zoom or change the scale of an entire chart. The title of this page is more general than the question in the OP. This adjustment is called "resizing" in OO, and can be hard to find in Help.

Move the mouse into the chart so that the popup (tooltip) shows "chart". Then right-click to get the chart properties menu. Choose "Position and Size..." to get a properties dialog box. Manually change the vertical or horizontal position of the graph, or the width of the graph (if Keep Ratio is checked, the height of the graph will change automatically).

Or, instead of changing manually, you can drag the chart or drag the green dots on the x or y axis with your mouse.