Time for another quick Excel tip.
Lets say the park near your house rents tennis courts by hour. And they charge $10 per hour. At the end of an intense tennis playing week, Linda, the tennis court manager called you up and said you need to pay $78 as rent for that week.
How many hours did you play?
Of course 78/10 = 7.8 hours.
But we all know that 7.8 hours makes no sense.
We also know that 7.8 hours is really 7 hours 48 minutes.
So how to convert 7.8 hrs to 7:48 ?
That is our quick tip for the day.
Simple, assuming the fractional time is in cell A1,
Use below steps to convert it to hours & minutes:
- In the target cell, write =A1/24
- Select the target cell and press CTRL+1 to format it (you can also right click and select format cells)
- Select Custom from “Number” tab and enter the code [h]:mm
- Done!
52 Bonus tips:
Thats all for now. Stay awesome until next time.
9 Responses to “Show forecast values in a different color with this simple trick [charting]”
While this works in a pinch, it clearly "lightens" the colors of the entire chart. Depending on where you use this, it will be blatantly obvious that you don't know what you are doing and present a poor looking graph.
Why not separate the data into different segments when charting and have as many colors as you have data points? You might have to create a new legend and/or repeat the chart in "invisible ink", but it would be cleaner and more consistent when new or updated data becomes available.
While I think I agree that doing it "properly" via a second series is preferable, I don't necessarily agree that making the entirety of the "future" (data, gridlines, and even the axis) semi-transparent is "poor looking". I think it could be seen as adding more emphasis to the "future-ness" of the forecast data.
In short, it's another tool for the toolbox, even if it's never needed.
Simply and clever 🙂
Quick & effective, cool. thanks.
I always use the dummy series.
Nice little trick, thanks very much!
Two sets of data better. Control is much better.
You can use the same chart next month to see what is actual and what is forecast.
To use this trick, I think grid lines has to be removed, that will make the graphic much more sharp.
to be honest, i dont understand why there is needed to do this way... in this case horizontal lines will be pale as well. then why a just can't change the color of the line partly???
Great tutorial. Thanks for the tutorial!