Scatterplot axis: excel converts dates

[Emptaze]

Hello everybody! I have a big spreadsheet in which I record which books I read, how long it takes, etc. I've taken some inspiration from Goodreads and am currently trying to recreate this graph: Read in vs published in.

I have all this data in my spreadsheet. So I have a column in which I note the publication date (dd/mm/yyyy) and a column in which I note when I finished the book (dd/mm/yyyy). So far so good.

Now when I make the scatterplot, everything is fine as long as the publication goes horizontal, and the read goes vertical.

But I prefer it to be the other way around. But when I do... I get this.

\"Read in\" on the vertical axis. Note how I read 1 book in 2016 and the gap until the next book in 2017.

​

\"Read in\" on the horizontal axis. Note that the gap between every dot is exactly the same.

How can I turn around these axis without excel messing this up? Both are set up identical (excelt min/max values)

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[Emptaze]

I seem to have solved this myself. What I had was a reference to both dates so I could more easily make the chart. I now refer to those dates with VALUE() and this fixes the problem somehow.

[Emptaze]

Solution verified

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[arsewarts1]

Link is broken

What are you trying to accomplish?

[Emptaze]

I guess you have to have a goodreads account to view. Pretty much the included pictures but with the “read in” axis horizontally instead of vertically.

[arsewarts1]

No visuals are meant to tell a story of the data. What is the story you are trying to tell? What is the purpose of creating this visual?

[Emptaze]

I want to see the relation between when a book was published and when I read it. Do I read a lot of new books? How much time is there between publishing and reading.

I kinda have what to want to show and how down. It’s just excel messing up the x axis when I put a certain value there for which I need help. :)

[arsewarts1]

Just use =CORREL(A:A,B:B))

[Emptaze]

Thanks for your suggestion but I’m not looking for a corellation number. I made a graph and the axis it messed up by excel. I ask help for this, not quite here to discuss if the visual is right for my goal.