We have received a chart for chart busters that required some fixing. I thought, this will be a fun exercise for you. So here it goes,
…column chart that shows daily, weekly or monthly data depending on the user’s choice. In daily the columns are displayed properly, but in weekly & monthly mode the columns are a fraction of the width they should be – why, and how can this be avoided? Bonus points if you can describe how to use an INDIRECT formula on the x-axis labels which is another problem I ran into whilst creating this mockup!
You can download the workbook from here.
Here is how it is looking:
Thanks Gordon for asking this question.
Featured Answers:
There were several people who answered this correctly. I am featuring two answers for this problem.
By Jeff Weir:
One way to fix this is to select the ‘axis options/axis type/text axis’ option in the axis dialogue box (it’s current setting is “Automatically select based on data”.
Then it would be good if you set the ‘interval between tick marks as one, as well as the ‘interval between labels’ as 1 also.
Unfortunately then you run into the problem that your dates are now too wide for the space allowed for them on the graph. Easiest way to do that is to firstly make the graph a little wider, and secondly have an intermediate formula that formats your dates so they have a character return between the month and year, like this:
1 Jan
2009
instead of this:
1 Jan 2009
You can accomplish that with a formula along the lines of this:
=DAY(B6)&CHOOSE(MONTH(B6),” Jan”, ” Feb”, ” Mar”, ” Apr”, ” May”, ” Jun”, ” Jul”, ” Aug”, ” Sep”,” Oct”,” Nov”,” Dec”)&CHAR(10)&YEAR(B6)
Also, the y axis could do with a custom number format. No point of displaying all those zeros if say $250k or 250k (assuming not a currency) will do.
You can see it here
By Gerald Higgins
Well, here goes with the simple solution (in 2003).
Right click the chart, and select Chart Options.
On the AXES tab, there are 3 options under “Category (X) axis”.
I think the option for Time scale was originally selected.
The option for “Automatic” also does not work.
But the option for “Category” does work.
All the commenters with an answer will receive their discount codes by this weekend. Enjoy.
Lear more about making better charts using these chart busters examples:
- Asset Allocation Charts – Done the right way
- Calorie chart – How much you should exercise for what you eat – fixed properly
13 Responses to “Data Validation using an Unsorted column with Duplicate Entries as a Source List”
Pivot Table will involve manual intervention; hence I prefer to use the 'countif remove duplicate trick' along with 'text sorting formula trick; then using the offset with len to name the final range for validation.
if using the pivot table, set the sort to Ascending, so the list in the validation cell comes back alphabetically.
Hui: Brillant neat idea.
Vipul: I am intrigued by what you are saying. Please is it possible to show us how it can be done, because as u said Hui's method requires user intervention.
Thks to PHD and all
K
Table names dont work directly inside Data validation.
You will have to define a name and point it to the table name and then use the name inside validation
Eg MyClient : Refers to :=Table1[Client]
And then in the list validation say = MyClient
Kieranz,
Pls download the sample here http://cid-e98339d969073094.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/data-validation-unsorted-list-example.xls
Off course there are many other ways of doing the same and integrating the formulae in multiple columns into one.
Pls refer to column FGHI in that file. Cell G4 is where my validation is.
Vipul:
Many thks, will study it latter.
Rgds
K
[...] to chandoo for the idea of getting unique list using Pivot tables. What we do is that create a pivot table [...]
@Vipul:
Thanks, that was awesome! 🙂
@Playercharlie Happy to hear that 🙂
Great contribution, Hui. Solved a problem of many years!
Thanks to you, A LOT
Hi Hui,
Greeting
hope you are doing well.
I'm interested to send you a private vba excel file which i need to show detail of pivot in new workbook instead of showing in same workbook as new sheet.
Please contact me on muhammed.ye@gmail.com
Best Regards