[Solved] Chart: How to add additional data column as label

[Femmesole]

Attached find jpg with problem identified. Apologies if repetition. Just joined forum.

Attempting to add date and time data to chart for blood pressure.

[Zizi64]

Your attached picture has a low resolution and it is very blurry. It can not give us enough information about your problem. Please

- post only Tutorials and Descriptions into the TUTORIAL furum. See the label "No question in this forum please"
- upload a real, ODF type sample file instead of the picture.
- use a 256 color depth PNG type files for the image attachments.

[robleyd]

Topic moved to appropriate location.

The OpenOffice User Guides forCharts_and_Graphs should be a useful resource for the construction of charts in Calc.

[Femmesole]

Thank you.
Will have to learn what is meant by ODF file.
Attempting png upload.

[robleyd]

ODF is Open Document Format, the format used in Apache OpenOffice documents. Ziz64 is suggesting that you upload a Calc file - .ods - showing the type of data you are working with and the chart you have thus far created.

Uploading an image gives us no idea of what you have done to create the chart.

[Femmesole]

Thanks for your patience.

Have attached ods file.

[Zizi64]

The "time values" are not time values really in your file, but they are pure 4 digit integer numbers.
You need enter (type-in) them in a Standard format, like the "hh:mm".
1930 -> 19:30

[Zizi64]

Your file was .xls file before. There was inherited incompatible formatting parameters in the file.

First I swiched on the Column and Row headers, then I deleted a lot of formatting parameters, Then I was justed the font of the default Cell style to Arial, and I have created a new Cell Style named "DateTime" with your specific date-time format. And then I have re-entered the combined date-time values manually. Finally I have recreated the chart in compatible format.

Use the cellstyles to format your spreadsets instead of the manual formatting.

BloodPressure_Zizi64.ods

(27.07 KiB) Downloaded 74 times

[MrProgrammer]

You need enter (type-in) them in a Standard format, like the "hh:mm".

No need to re-type. [Tutorial] Text to Columns Q11/A11

[Femmesole]

Thanks for your help.

I did know about alternative date and time formats, however have mostly used xls and I am not expert.

Is it just not possible to do what I was attempting?

[Zizi64]

Attempting to add date and time data to chart for blood pressure.
...
Is it just not possible to do what I was attempting?

Sorry, I misunderstuud your problem first: I thought you want display the time values on the axis "x", together with the dates... And it works with real mumeric ("combined") DateTime values only.




Yes, it is possible:

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=78870

Acknak wrote in that thread:

One way to configure the chart to use a column as data labels:

Under "Data Ranges" assign the column as "Categories" or "Data Labels", then right-click on a data point, Format Data Labels > Data Labels, set "Show Categories" as YES

But you must Format (or convert / retype) your "time values" to real, well formatted time values or to Text values, otherwise (maybe) the 0730 will be appeared as 730. A four digit number seems NOT (for me) as a time value...

And if you want add combined DateTime "values" to the points, then you must "append" the Date and the Time values into one column. It will work only with regular DateTime values or as with "appended text format data" .

You can use one set of the user defined labels for all of graph lines, you can not use different user defined labels for the different chart lines. - Or you can use the Values as labels. (Tried in my LibreOffice 5.4.7)

...however have mostly used xls and I am not expert.

Always use the native, international ODF file formats for your important documents.

[Femmesole]

Thanks for the help.
In that case I think I was attempting something not possible. Perhaps it would take the ability to add a text box or similar to the chart.
The reason is that the spreadsheet is printed to allow recording in the home situation; with data being transferred later to produce the chart for medical personnel to evaluate (easier in graphic format).
Home recording usually has separate columns for date and time.

Attached find the result I have now produced and it's ok.

Once again, thank you very much. These programmes are becoming so complex, it hard to keep up unless one uses them all the time. It's great to have a forum like this from which to obtain help.

[Villeroy]

Once again, thank you very much. These programmes are becoming so complex, it hard to keep up unless one uses them all the time.

Same complexity since the first spreadsheets of the early 80ies. In fact these complexities are due to the fact that the programs are so simple. They do not include artificial intelligence to interprete "20.8.2018 - 13:45" as a German timestamp value. A spreadsheet provides a simplified, more visual programming language and programming languages need to determine between text and number at least.
Spreadsheets did not change since their early days. They all work with the same concepts of absolute/relative referencing, value/format, text/number, constant/formula.

Dates in spreadsheets are day numbers:
43289,75 (German comma) formatted as date-time gives "8.7.18 18:00" (day number 43289 plus 3/4 of a day). The same number can be formatted as "8/7/18 18:00", ISO date "2018-07-08 18:00", American date "7/8/18 6 pm" as currency value "43289,75 €" but it remains the same numeric value 43289,75 or 43289.75 with decimal point.
The text value "8.7.18 18:00" is not a number at all and it is never the same value as 43289.75 or any of its formattings. A formatting never changes the actual value of a cell.

[Femmesole]

Surely its all relative. I remember sitting in a class in 1980, where all others were male and seemed to know what it was all about, trying to learn Pascal programming and writing out programmes for input by another and when forgetting a semicolon meant another week of waiting.... My background was in Latin, French, English and History, not in numbers. I did not find any of it simple.

I was not being critical of the programme. I think it's wonderful that so many people develop and give their time freely to maintain Open Office and other such programmes.

[jrkrideau]

I am not sure but I think that Villeroy means that spreadsheets are simple-minded brutes and a lot of the complexity you are running into is because the user needs to compensate for this simple-mindness.