Problems Solved
PROBLEM OF THE FORTNIGHT
How do I label my Calc charts?
Q I’ve been using LibreOffice for years, but when I create charts in Calc, I can’t work out how to display dates as numbers on the X axis. If I have a column of dates going from 2001 to 2020, for example, Calc seems to treat them as data, which I suppose I understand. However, if I create a column of months, such as January, February, March and so on, the program correctly displays them as labels along the X axis. As an experiment, I entered the dates in the year column as ‘y2001’, ‘y2002’ and ‘y2003’ – and Calc correctly identified them as labels rather than data. This makes me wonder if labels on the X axis have to start with a letter. Obviously, I’d rather use the actual years as labels. What am I missing?
Terry Chapman
A We could write an entire book on producing charts in LibreOffice Calc. While we’re sure some people would find that riveting, we think your particular problem is a fairly common one, so we can offer a relatively concise answer here.
You didn’t tell us which types of chart you’re trying to create, but we understand the fundamental problem and we have a solution. But first, we should mention that this quirk doesn’t afflict all types of chart. If you were to plot your data as an X-Y scatter chart, for example, you would see the years along the X axis and the data along the Y axis (see screenshot above). That’s because the nature of the X and Y axes is implicit in this kind of chart.
However, if you create a bar chart or similar, as we believe you’re doing, you need to give LibreOffice a little more guidance over what is data and what is a label. There are numerous ways to achieve this and, again, it depends on
