# plot a graph from a csv file... Excel?



## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

I have an application that logs data for my vehicles' OBD2 ports and creates csv text files. As I log the data in real time the application shows nice line graphs of the monitored parameters vs. time but for some reason doesn't seem to have a replay function to facilitate more detailed review. Are there any simple and hopefully free Win 10 applications that can do this, just import the file and display a scrollable graph? As it is I can import the data into Excel but just reviewing this stuff in a table is not optimal. I am not an Excel expert but I didn't see any way to do what I want in there... but as I said, I am far from an Excel expert.


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

So I have been looking more into doing this with Excel. I see how to insert a "chart" of the line graph type. My issue is that when the csv file opens in Excel the data is presented as x,y,z where x represents the time which I would like to be the horizontal axis, and y and z are the monitored parameters. This data does not respect cells. IOW it just appears as a string. How can I separate these three fields into separate columns, if that's what is necessary to chart them properly?


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

Here is how the file imports into Excel:


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

OK... I have kept working this and have successfully imported the data into separate columns. Now to try to figure out how to load it into a graph.


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

Try this: https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-turn-excel-spreadsheet-data-into-graphs


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## Raylo (Feb 12, 2006)

I figured it out... mostly. Excel is a PITA. First, the data imported as text and you have to copy and "paste special" to add an empty number cell to every column to convert them to numbers. Then Excel has a mind of its own when creates charts and graphs from the data selected. I wish it had some manual settings to say this column is the y-axis and these other columns are data to be displayed along the x-axis. But I eventually got it to display what I wanted. This is a plot of left and right upstream and downstream oxygen sensor voltages for a run in my Toyota Tacoma V6 engine from data recorded by the BlueDriver hardware and app. The legend is B1S1 - bank one sensor 1 (upstream), etc.


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