The Chart dialog box enables you to insert a chart or modify an existing one.
The dialog box has three Control Tabs for changing properties of your chart and a Preview Window to preview the chart before inserting it. These tabs are:
The Type tab
This tab enables you to select a type of chart you wish to create. These types are:
Bar Charts:
Pie Charts:
Line and Area Charts:
Hi-Lo Charts:
Different Charts:
Wall Charts:
Ribbon Charts:
The Style tab
This tab enables you to define a style of your chart. The tab is context sensitive relatively to a selected type of chart. The Style tab is different for: Pie charts, Line charts, and other charts.
When a Pie Chart is chosen, the Style tab enables you to modify appearance of the pie chart.
A chart selection window is located to the left of the tab. Here you can select a chart or a segment of a chart to modify.
The Pie Thickness control enables you to modify height of your pie.
The Pie Style section enables you to set a style of your pie:
The Format section enables you to define form of your data. If you check Value,
values of your data series will be displayed. If you check Percent, you will
display percentages of your data series.
In this tab, you also have the Preview window with orientation slider controls.
These enable you to control orientation of a selected pie. The blank button in the
right-bottom corner switches your pie between the plane and its previous position. There
are the arrows to rotate your pie in the same plane clockwise and counterclockwise. The
plus and minus buttons let you zoom the pie in/out. By clicking the tree item in the left
pane of the Style tab, you can select a broken down slice you wish to display.
There are two more buttons by which you can separate and join back to your pie a segment
corresponding to a selected value.
The >> button will apply your changes to a picture in the main Preview window
of the dialog box (make sure to check the Preview check box beforehand).
Here you can set appearances of the Axes and the lines.
There are three axes available: X, Y1 and Y2. Y1 and Y2 make it possible to see two different charts in one. It means that you can define two different measurements in one chart.
For each of the axes you can change the following properties:
Label Size has four choices for labels of the axis:
Grid Lines has the following choices:
Minor Ticks defines a number of ticks between major ticks.
Tick Marks option enables you to switch on/off tick marks.
Step defines a step between major ticks.
Max Value sets maximum value for the axis. By default, this function considers maximum value of your data series. To change this to a value other than the default value, use the pull-down menu.
Min Value sets minimum value for the axis. By default, this function considers minimum value of your data series. To change this to a value other than the default value, use the pull-down menu.
You can change additional options for your chart by clicking the Data Series... button and getting the Data Series dialog box.
To make your chart more understandable and representable, you can change Label Size and Grid Style of the X and Y Axes.
For Label Size, there are the following options:
For Grid Style, the following options are available:
The Style tab (Hi-Lo Charts)
In addition to the Label Size and Grid Style sections, there are two more check boxes in the Style tab for Hi-Lo Charts.
Check the Show Depth box to make chart bars look deeper.
Check the Full Rotation box to enable full rotation of your chart with all its axes. To rotate your chart, drag the sliders in the Preview section. If this check box is cleared, your chart will rotate with respect to one axis when the slider is dragged.
This tab enables you to set values for your chart. To create a table, press the New button and set a number of Rows and Columns. You can change the default names of axes. Once you set the number of rows and columns, you can Add, Insert or Delete the row(s) or column(s).
Add Row(s)/Column(s)
Adds row(s)/column(s) to the end of the list.
Insert Row(s)/Column(s)
Inserts line(s) exactly in above a selected row; and column(s) exactly to the left of a selected column.
Delete Row(s)/Column(s)
Deletes selected row(s)/column(s).
To type in values for your chart, you can double-click a cell or press enter or click a selected cell.
In this tab, you can also set Colors for your chart. Pressing the Colors button displays the Colors dialog box.
In the dialog box, there is the Preview section with sliders for setting appearance of your chart. The lower slider enables you to rotate your chart from left to right, the left slider enables you to rotate your chart from top to bottom. The upper slider sets width of bars or lines.
For Bar Charts, there are two buttons under the Preview window: Horizontal and Symmetric. If you press the Horizontal button alternatively, your Bar charts will be converted into horizontal bar charts or vertical ones respectively. If you press the Symmetric button, charts containing negative data will be displayed along with the symmetrically equal halves of the X axis (the positive and negative semi-axes are equal). In case your bar charts are arranged horizontally, the appearance will be vice versa: the Y semi-axes will be symmetric.