Series of two non-adjacent cells?

[Mike Hartsough]

I have a list of daily values. I want to see the slope between two values
that are several months apart.

How do I define a series of just two cells (D224 and D266) that are
non-adjacent (non-sequential?)?

Thanks,
Mike

p.s. When I searched this group for "trendline", I got no hits. When I
searched for "trend", I got a lot of hits, including many hits containing the
word, "trendline". Isn't that odd?

 

[Jon Peltier]

Do you want to calculate it or chart it? Presumably you have dates in
related cells (assuming column A).

Calculation is easy:

=(D266-D224)/(A266-A224)

Plotting:

Activate your chart. Go to Chart menu > Source Data > Series tab. Click add.
Click in the Y Values box, select D266, hold Ctrl and select D224. Click in
the X Values box, select A266, hold Ctrl and select A224. Press Enter.

This works for an XY chart. If you have a line chart and the scale is a date
axis scale, you will need to convert the added series from a line series to
and XY series: select the series, Chart menu > Chart Type, select something
in the XY family, with a line and probably markers.

- Jon

 

[David Biddulph]

When I searched this group for trendline I got 2170 hits:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/yot8n6

 

[Mike Hartsough]

Thanks Jon.

Just want to plot.

I didn't mention that I already have two series in the chart. A "Planned"
series and an "Actual" series. My X axis is dates (Days) taken from column A.
The new series is to represent the slope that "Actual" needs to have in order
to join "Planned" by a specific date.

So when I create the new series, its points are displayed in the chart as
the first two days in the X axis (which isn't correct). If I specify new X
axis values that cause the new series to display correctly (A224,A266), it
messes up the display of my existing series.

Thanks again,
Mike

 

[Jon Peltier]

Mike -

You could put values in two more columns, with numerical values in (say)
E224 and E266 corresponding to the Y values you want plotted, and #N/A
elsewhere. Plot this column using the same X values. Excel will plot the two
points and connect a line where #N/A is present between plottable values.

- Jon