plotting blank cells in Excel charts

[Metron Management Company]

I have an Excel chart which plots a series of values,

one for each day. There is only something to plot

on certain days; nothing on others. For instance,

I might want to plot this: 30,35,38,(null),(null),55,52,...

There are formulas in my worksheet that compute these

values using IF statements, as in "=IF(condition,30,)"

so the cell appears blank if the condition evaluates to

false. But the chart sees this "blank" cell as a zero

value, so it plots the sequence 30,35,38,0,0,55,52,...

which distorts and clutters the chart. I want the

plot to appear as discontinuous line segments.

Does anyone know how to do this? Thanks in advance.

[Charlie Cormier]

Have you tried using a scatter plot instead of a line plot?

Metron Management Company wrote:

--
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[Martin Brown]

Metron Management Company wrote:

> I have an Excel chart which plots a series of values,
> one for each day. There is only something to plot
> on certain days; nothing on others. For instance,
> I might want to plot this: 30,35,38,(null),(null),55,52,...
>
> There are formulas in my worksheet that compute these
> values using IF statements, as in "=IF(condition,30,)"
> so the cell appears blank if the condition evaluates to
> false. But the chart sees this "blank" cell as a zero
> value, so it plots the sequence 30,35,38,0,0,55,52,...

You are using the wrong sort of "blank".

1. A truly empty cell doesn't get plotted at all and gives line
segments.
2. A cell with =NA() in it will be interpolated across

3. A cell with an empty string in it gets plotted as "0".

> which distorts and clutters the chart. I want the
> plot to appear as discontinuous line segments.
> Does anyone know how to do this? Thanks in advance.

Try #1 above

Regards,
Martin Brown

[Joseph E. Boyett Jr.]

The correct entry for missing data is #N/A That value will cause line
charts, bar charts, etc. to plot correctly as a discontinuous point or
line segment.