Simple concept, say I have two columns. The first contains a time or date, and the next a word or two describing an event.

1970, born
1987, graduated highschool
1991, graduated college

Does there exist a program, or a feature within a program like Excel, that takes this data and spits out a timeline where the dates are spaced proportionally and not just evenly spaced? Something like this:

                                          1991
                                          Graduated college
+----------------------------------+------+
1970                               1987
born                               graduated high school

The best solution I’ve found, at least in Excel, is to treat the dates like a histogram or scatter plot so the dots show up in the right place, then add labels after.

  • Pat@lemmy.ca
    6·
    3 days ago

    What you’ve found is probably sufficient if you have a small amount of data or only need this type of display rarely.

    Another approach to solving this would be to create a date table listing all of the date units between the start and end of your timeline and represent those as having no value. When you add your values to this data set you ensure proportional spacing, as every date unit in the set will be represented. This type of work is much easier to do using Power Query, if you have access to that Excel add in.