Line chart in : Shared baseline
William Playfair, 1786 — later refined for meteorology and markets position of a polyline through ordered time Clip Line chart from a paper and keep the axis sentence, not the colour. Year , line “Shared baseline,” figure 1786. Colour alone does not carry size. Perspective distortion wrecks comparison. Keep it flat.
William Playfair, 1786 — later refined for meteorology and markets position of a polyline through ordered time Yes if one claim is visible at a glance in Meta, Google and retail print; otherwise link to a full figure. Yes for lab reports and poster boards if axes, units and a source line are present.
Excel or Google Sheets or PowerPoint; export SVG/PDF. Do not rely on hue alone. Label directly and check greyscale. Line chart: honour position of a polyline through ordered time, and switch when unordered categories, or more than about four overlapping series. The core mark of Line chart is position of a polyline through ordered time.
trends, seasonality and a few series over time The eye compares length and position more accurately than area. PowerPoint, Excel or Google Sheets and Meta, Google and retail print share the same geometry. Decoration rarely persuades; it slows reading. Do not stack stories. One Line chart, one claim.
Keep axis, unit, and year. If “Shared baseline” is the axis, the figure is 1786 and the year is .1786
Figures to keep
- Year of the chart
- 1786
- Axis figure
- 1786
- Chart
- Line chart
- How to read it
- Shared baseline
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