Too much manual work placing the labels. Is there no software that can properly take care of this for me?
both excel (easily) and librecalc autoplace the labels. I used excel since the dark ages, and it was always pretty trivial. I'm new to libre (retired in 2010 so I hardly use calc much now, tbh), but it still did it after about 5m of swearing
Turns out it required the x axis to be sorted. I've attached my quick-and-dirty example so you can look at the settings to get it to look that way, but one could easily use make a template and reuse it. I'll try export to xls as well (I no longer have win or office) but idk how the export will look, or even if the forum will let me attach these. Even if not, you can do it, and it's only hard the first time (manually set data columns and data label vector).
yeah, forum blocked the .ods attachment, but the export to xls attached ok (idk if it exported well). The real key is the info: nearly any spreadsheet will do what you want, and autolabel pts correctly, but it takes a little familiarity w/ the program. Sorting by x value is often required or it confuses the graphing routines. It's a good trick to master anyway, imho! I used to use this all the time in the corpo world. Should be doable in 5-15m depending on skillz. Expect some foul language, as it's (exp in libre) a little non-obvious
Not feasible in Excel because it can't figure out the label placement automatically
nope, excel absolutely can autoplace the labels for u. Be sure the array is sorted by x values, and that the label vector is specified to be the fields u want. Did this all the time, for many years (no longer have xcel or win atm tho).
if you can't figure it out, I think my wife might have excel on her machine, I could probably send you an example. But, honestly, knowing it's possible, and the sorting req't, you'll probably figure it out faster yourself.
(my bad; might be sort data by y, not x. Was thinking x but actually did y and it worked w/o paying much attn, out of habit. May vary by program)
just did the same thing in google sheets, it's actually almost easier, although i've never used sheets before and found it kinda opaque and harder to customize. If I remember right, can even do it in gnuplot, but I haven't used that in ~35yrs.
(not a fan, but first time rly using it and so may be lack of familiarity)