Need help: Display comments in charts | Draw a vertical line chart

[kai233]

Hi,
First I want to say hello, cause I'm new to the forum.

So here's my problem:

I created a table to compare certain products by qualifiers with values between 0 and 10.
For many of the values I've added comments attached to the cell (indicated by the little yellow triangle) to give some background info about the reason for the value given.

I then created a line chart to compare these services.
I'd love to see the given comments on the graph's points, but all I see are tooltips displaying "series 'column name' point 'raw name' value:x" instead.
Is there any (possibly easy) way to change that.

In addition, I'd like to draw the lines vertically instead of horizontally.
Any tips on how to turn a chart 90 degrees?

Many, many thanks for help,
Kai

[Ken Puls]

Hi Kai, and welcome to the forum.

Excel comments can't be plotted on a chart that I'm aware. If the comments were put in cells, and you could make them either the series or category name, then you could attach those as data labels.

If I hear you correctly on the plotting vertically vs horizontally, I think all you'd need to do is switch your rows/columns in the chart. Not sure what version of Excel you're using, but in 2007/2010 you can do this by selecting the chart, then on the Chart Tools-->Design tab choose "Switch Row/Column"

[kai233]

Hi Ken,

Thanks for the warm welcome and many more for your fast reply!

Yeah, that's really a pity that you can't have the comments on the graphs, even if it's just two different views on the same data.
Excel provides so many options and variations, but in this case not the ones one may need. At least, not the one I need.

For the vertical graph it is the same. Who said that a line always go from left to right. I was experimenting with the column switcher. But when using the switcher the lines are drawn for 'the other' titles, in my case each qualifier becomes it's own line instead of the product, still with a horizontal line. So this doesn't help me. Anyway, I will just deal with the limitations. The graphs are still meaningful - even if the layout is not the one I would prefer.

Again, many thanks for your reply and help!

Cheers,
Kai

[Ken Puls]

Excel's charting engine is actually pretty versatile... you just sometimes have to attack it differently to get it to do what you need.

Maybe you could use a Dot Plot with interconnecting lines instead of a line chart? That would make your lines look a bit more vertical. And if you set the dots very small, you might not even seen them.

Jon Peltier has a great article on working with Dot Plots here