Graph question - difficult?

[Paul]

A guy from 1997 has the exact same question I do now... hopefully
someone can answer it (because he had no responses back then!)... I am
gonna repost his question:


I am trying to plot a chart containing data similar to that shown
below,
without much success:


Sprinkler OnTime OffTime
Front 0815 0845
Front 1445 1600
Front 1700 1730
Back 0900 0930
Back 1800 1830
Left 1100 1115
Right 1130 1215
Right 1900 1930
Right 2000 2030


I'd like to see a graph with four (discontinuous) horizontal lines,
each
line corresponding to one of the sprinklers. The X axis is plotted
from
0000 to 2400, and each line is visible when the sprinkler is on.

 

[Tom Hutchins]

I don't do much graphing, but I was able to create a (crude) graph like you
described. I used a stacked-bar graph with additional data series to fill in
the gaps (sprinkler OFF times) for each of the sprinklers. Then I created the
graph and hid the extra series. I laid out your data this way:

Sprinkler Invis1 On1 Invis2 On2 Invis3 On3 Invis4
Front 8.25 0.50 6.00 1.25 1.00 0.50 6.50
Back 9.00 0.50 8.50 0.50 5.50
Left 11.00 0.25 12.75
Right 11.50 0.75 6.75 0.50 0.50 0.50 3.50

(I know it's hard to read because the spacing gets distorted & it wraps).
The Invis1, Invis2, etc. series represent the times the sprinklers are idle.
On1, On2, and On3 represent the times the sprinklers are on. To get you a
reply more quickly, I have converted the times into fractions of an hour (30
minutes = 0.5, etc.). Each row sums to 24.

I selected the data and launched the chart wizard. I selected a stacked bar
graph, with the series in columns. Once the graph was drawn, I right-clicked
on each Invis series (one at a time) and selected Format Data Series. On the
Patterns, tab I selected None for border and None for Area. Then I selected
and deleted the legend entry for each Invis series. Finally, I adjusted the
X-axis scaling.

I'm sure this could be done using actual times instead of fractions. For
much more information on stacked-bar graphs (and every other kind!), check
out Jon Peltier's website:

http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Charts

Hope this helps,

Hutch