How do I display dates on the X-axis of my graph?

Question

Level 1

7 points

How do I display dates on the X-axis of my graph?

I have a spreadsheet - don’t recall where it came from - with two columns. A is dates, monthly. B is the data. Each row has a date and value. There is a line graph floating in it showing the column B data with values along the Y axis increasing up. There is nothing along the X axis. How do I get the dates to display along the X axis. The SS has has no column or row header designations. I can turn on X labels but it just says untitled.

I’m trying to learn some of the subtitles of Numbers. I have already recreated the SS with a header row and column and a graph displaying the axis labels correctly but was wondering if I could fix the first. You know, for educational purposes - incase the SS is big and hard to regen. Can I assign a column or column of cells as X?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

iPad, iPadOS 17

Posted on Aug 17, 2024 9:12 PM

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Answer 1

Yellowbox

Level 7

21,209 points

Aug 20, 2024 2:17 AM in response to rocks4brains

Hi Rocks,

When I find that a graph misbehaves, I find it easier to delete that naughty graph, select the table columns, and insert a new graph.

"The SS has has no column or row header designations."

That could be a clue. Are you inserting a Scatter Plot or a Line Graph?

Also I second SG's request for a screen shot.

Regards,

Ian.

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Answer 2

SGIII

Level 8

36,134 points

Aug 20, 2024 5:21 PM in response to rocks4brains

Do it the Numbers way!

Put the data in its own table, with a Header Row and (if you want a line graph instead of x-y Scatter) a Header Column.

Unlike in Excel, in Numbers you don't have to have one big grid of cells. You can easily have multiple tables on one sheet.

Select the columns in the data table and insert the chart.

Format to taste and you're done.

SG

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Answer 3

rocks4brains Author

Level 1

7 points

Aug 20, 2024 1:22 PM in response to rocks4brains

File source is Fred.stlouisfed.org. On that site you can download to an excel file. Opening the file in Numbers gives this:

create a line graph:

add data:

how do I tell it to use data from the adjacent column which is formatted as dates by default?

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Answer 4

SGIII

Level 8

36,134 points

Aug 18, 2024 5:58 PM in response to rocks4brains

Could you post a screenshot? shift-command-4, drag to select area with cross-hairs, release, start new post here and use the mountains-and-moon 'Image insertion' icon beneath the compose window to insert the screenshot image from the Desktop.

SG

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Answer 5

rocks4brains Author

Level 1

7 points

Aug 19, 2024 7:06 PM in response to rocks4brains

I think I know the problem. The SS was originally an excel opened in Numbers. Format doesn’t play well in Numbers.

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