Stair Case Diagram with Microsoft Excel

How do you create stair case graph with Microsoft Excel XP (2002) like the following one?


I want to do this automatically and without having to insert false data in the original Excel table

 

i guess there would be more granular data (ie monthly) between the years - hence the look of the "stair-case", when in fact they are just smoothed lines between the months?

 

What is the dataset? Specifically how many data points do you have representing the horizontal axis? If you don't have one for each "stairstep" you can't do this in Excel. It can't interpolate the intermediate points. Which is what I think you were driving at, right?

Gary

 

There are 64 data points on the horizontal axis. They represent the interest rate of my credit card in the past 64 months. So, each data point represents the interest rate of a particular month.

I want to create a stair case graph just like in the picture, instead of regular graph in which each dot is directly connected by a line.

 

you won't even want to know what I do in code to create more jazzy stuff. LOL.

okie dokie if you aren't doing it in VBA,
then the closest approximation might be this -

1. more data points between the years;
so in this case if you're talking about your interest rates and not the fed funds rates, then you'll need to set up the x-axis with your timeline in MONTHS, and the interest rates in the y-axis

2. once you have your data points, set these up as a scatter plot

3. setup the x-error bars as a Plus, fixed value, with the value being
the "fixed amount" being the width of the interval.
(however, if you actually had setup the time-series as date data types,
then that fixed value might have to be in days - I just used 30 though you could setup another column to be really precise)

4. setup the y error bars as the Minus, and this time you'd really need to set up a separate column so that the height is precise.
the first value would be 0. the next value would be t1 - t0
(if you had set the y-series data in a column, it'd be row 2 - row1).

sorry. the sample is easier.
http://cid-ce904ab92828259b.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/staircaseDemo.xls

 

Thanks for the tip I will give it a try.

 

Have you seen this website?

http://www.andypope.info/charts/stepchart.htm

 

interesting to find that my proposal using the error bars works.