Total newbie (or almost) to Excel. I want to make a simple chart (a line
chart, I expect) to illusstrate a simple concept. A performer must pay
commissions to his agent when he gets paid for those performances. The
performances will all occur in the future. The performer changes agents.
He must pay Agent 1 commissions for the jobs he got from him. He will pay
Agent 2 for new jobs Agent 2 gets him. I want a line chart that would show
year-by-year that the commissions paid out to Agent 1 decline to zero as the
remaining Agent 1 jobs are done while the commissions paid to Agent 2 will
increase from zero as he gets more jobs for the performer.

Say for the next 6 years starting in 2008 the number of Agent 1 jobs is
5-4-3-2-1-0 respectively while the number of Agent 2 jobs is 0-1-2-3-4-5.
Obviously all the 2008 jobs are Agent 1's and by 2013 all the jobs are Agent
2's. In the intervening years there will be an overlap where each agent
gets some commissions. I tried making a 3-column chart with years in column
1, Agent 1 jobs in column 2 and Agent 3 jobs in column 3. With the chart
wizard I get a chart that makes no sense.

Thanks!
--

Joe McGuire

Hi,

Your data layout sound right.

It should look like this in the range A1:C7, where A1 is empty.

Agent 1 Agent 2
Year 2008 5 0
Year 2009 4 1
Year 2010 3 2
Year 2011 2 3
Year 2012 1 4
Year 2013 0 5

Select the range A1:C7 and create a Line chart. You should get 2 lines
forming that form a X.

Cheers
Andy


Joe McGuire wrote:
Total newbie (or almost) to Excel. I want to make a simple chart (a line
chart, I expect) to illusstrate a simple concept. A performer must pay
commissions to his agent when he gets paid for those performances. The
performances will all occur in the future. The performer changes agents.
He must pay Agent 1 commissions for the jobs he got from him. He will pay
Agent 2 for new jobs Agent 2 gets him. I want a line chart that would show
year-by-year that the commissions paid out to Agent 1 decline to zero as the
remaining Agent 1 jobs are done while the commissions paid to Agent 2 will
increase from zero as he gets more jobs for the performer.

Say for the next 6 years starting in 2008 the number of Agent 1 jobs is
5-4-3-2-1-0 respectively while the number of Agent 2 jobs is 0-1-2-3-4-5.
Obviously all the 2008 jobs are Agent 1's and by 2013 all the jobs are Agent
2's. In the intervening years there will be an overlap where each agent
gets some commissions. I tried making a 3-column chart with years in column
1, Agent 1 jobs in column 2 and Agent 3 jobs in column 3. With the chart
wizard I get a chart that makes no sense.

Thanks!

--

Andy Pope, Microsoft MVP - Excel
http://www.andypope.info