”ddd-d-mmm” is going to be a little cumbersome. Maybe I can put it on 2 lines

TEXT(D2,”ddd”)&CHAR(10)&(D2,”d-mmm”) ? Then, I might move the second 2 lines up into the lower region of the graph and below my y data (not shown here.

I forgot that the chart labeler was needed to use a column of labels.

I’m not sure what you’re really trying, but this might be it.

Here’s the data range. Columns 1 and 2 are X (the date) and Y (zero to sit on the axis). Columns D-F are your labels, and column C is a concatenated label, which uses this formula:

=TEXT(D2,”d-mmm”)&CHAR(10)&E2&CHAR(10)&F2

It puts the date first, using TEXT to apply a format to the date (or else it would be just a number. like 39941). CHAR(10) tells Excel to use the 10th character in the ASCII character set to add a line break.

I have no idea what else is in your chart, but here is a blank chart with your data points from this table added on top of the default time scale axis using the X and Y values in the table.

Here I’ve hidden the default axis tick labels, and added labels to the series added above. Use Rob Bovey’s Chart Labeler

Finally, you can hide the default axis tick marks and use black crosses to simulate axis ticks.

You could use the date for the axis, then place points along the axis using a dummy series (a line chart series with no markers or lines) and apply data labels to these points.

Date time left count
Fri, 8 May 10 wk 3 d 21
Wed, 13 May 9 wk 5 d 19
Mon, 18 May 9 wk 0 d 17
Fri, 22 May 8 wk 3 d 15
Mon, 25 May 8 wk 0 d 14
Fri, 29 May 7 wk 3 d 13
Mon, 1 Jun 7 wk 0 d 12
Fri, 5 Jun 6 wk 3 d 11
Mon, 8 Jun 6 wk 0 d 10
Fri, 12 Jun 5 wk 3 d 9
Mon, 15 Jun 5 wk 0 d 8
Fri, 19 Jun 4 wk 3 d 7
Mon, 22 Jun 4 wk 0 d 6
Fri, 26 Jun 3 wk 3 d 5
Mon, 29 Jun 3 wk 0 d 4
Fri, 3 Jul 2 wk 3 d 3
Mon, 6 Jul 2 wk 0 d 2
Fri, 10 Jul 1 wk 3 d last one

Notice uneven intervals and events (20, 18, 16) not to be reported. This is all x-axis data to track numeric values on the y-axis. Is it possible to make a week/day scale that will space the date intervals and list the date and count values (Date count)?

I also have some special text labels to apply to the data points. Is it possible to list the value and text label (Value Text label)?

Excellent post! This is one that I’ve been waiting for. So many folks use line when they have numerical X and Y data, and they wonder why their charts don’t look right. Now we’ve got a good resource to tell them to read. Looking forward to the rest of the series.

“You should avoid charts with smoothed lines, especially without markers, because the smoothed lines may misrepresent the actual data being plotted.”

I’m emailing you my favorite example of the evils of smoothed XY charts. I’m sure that there must be a a use, somewhere, for smoothed XY charts, but not in my repertoire.

Tim

[Here is Tim's example, followed by his commentary in his email. - JP]

This picture shows two XY Scatter charts of the same data. This is supposed to be a step function as shown on the left side. If you choose a smoothed XY scatter, instead of Scatter with Straight Lines, then you get the chart on the right. All too often my students will turn in an example that looks like the one on the right, even though they have seen numerous examples of step functions and I’ve lectured extensively on them.