Breadpoint

In the course of updating my bread workbook this morning, I thought I may have damaged it, so a quick check was in order. Which led to the line graph above, with a straight line added by Powerpoint for clarity. My interpretation is that, ignoring things like holidays and variation in the amount of flour, my consumption of bread has slowly fallen over the period. BH not a confound as she prefers to stick to her own brand.

If I was being picky, I suppose I might have done something with the weight of dough column, which would have dealt with variation in the amount of flour. Have to think about that one.

Notwithstanding, as things stand, the first snap above is of the line graph that Excel produces by default when I select the date column of the relevant worksheet, the beginning of which is the second snap above. Presently a header row and 345 data rows. With the date column being formatted as a date, which gives Excel a clue as to interpretation. 

Not terribly clever about the layout of the vertical axis, with a data range much wider than the dates actually present require and a rather curious choice of dates to label. Clearly too much bother for the programmer to move the label points to something tidy like the beginning of each year.

While the horizontal axis appears to be the serial number of the data row, that is to say starting at 1 and running through to 345. With the label interval being 13, rather than a tidy 10 or 20.

And then there is the statistical point that having date along the horizontal axis might be the more usual, the more natural, way of presenting data of this kind.

I dare say I could do better if I learned how to override the defaults, but that is far too much bother - not least because I have never having got on terribly well with fiddling with the axes.

PS 1: note also the slight pixelation visible on the upper line. Presumably unavoidable on a gently sloping line like this one.

PS 2: 15:42: batch No.345 has now emerged from the hot oven and looks good. Tasting to follow in due course.