Formatting Charts

Apache OpenOffice 4.1 Calc Guide

Chapter 3: Creating Charts and Graphs

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• Introduction
• Creating a Chart
  • Choosing a Chart Type
  • Changing Data Ranges and Axes Labels
  • Selecting Data series
  • Adding or Changing Titles, Legend, and Grids
• Editing Charts
  • Changing the Chart Type
  • Adding or Removing Chart Elements
    • Data Labels
    • Trend Lines
    • Mean Value Lines
    • Y Error Bars
• Formatting Charts
  • Moving Chart Elements
  • Changing the Chart Area Background
  • Changing the Chart Graphic Background
  • Changing Colors
• Formatting 3D Charts
  • Rotation and Perspective
  • Appearance
  • Illumination
  • Rotating 3D Charts Interactively
• Formatting the Chart Elements
  • Formatting Axes and Inserting Grids
  • Formatting Data Labels
  • Hierarchical Axis Labels
  • Choosing and Formatting Symbols
• Adding Drawing Objects to Charts
• Resizing and Moving the Chart
  • Using the Position and Size Dialog
• Gallery of Chart Types
  • Column Charts
  • Bar Charts
  • Pie Charts
  • Donut Charts
  • Area Charts
  • Line Charts
  • Scatter or XY Charts
  • Bubble Charts
  • Net Charts
  • Stock Charts
  • Column and Line Charts

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Formatting Charts

The Format menu has many options for fine-tuning the appearance of your charts.

Double-click the chart so it is enclosed by a gray border indicating edit mode; select the chart element you want to format. Choose Format from the menu bar, or right-click to display a context menu relevant to the selected element. The formatting choices are as follows.

Format Selection

Opens a dialog in which you can specify the area fill, borders, transparency, characters, font effects, and other attributes of the selected element of the chart (see Formatting the Chart Elements).

Position and Size

Opens a dialog (see Using the Position and Size Dialog).

Arrangement

Provides two choices: Bring Forward and Send Backward, of which only one may be active for some items. Use these choices to arrange overlapping data series.

Title

Formats the titles of the chart and its axes.

Legend

Formats the location, borders, background, and type of the legend.

Axis

Formats the lines that create the chart as well as the font of the text that appears on both the X and Y axes.

Grid

Formats the lines that create a grid for the chart.

Chart Wall, Chart Floor, Chart Area

These functions are described in the following sections.

Chart Type

Changes what kind of chart is displayed and whether it is two- or three-dimensional.

Data Ranges

Explained in Changing Data Ranges and Axes Labels (Figure 68 and Figure 69).

3D View

Formats 3D charts (see Formatting 3D Charts).

Chart Floor and 3D View are only available for a 3D chart. These options are unavailable (grayed out) if a 2D chart is selected.

In most cases, you need to select the exact element you want to format. Sometimes this can be tricky to do with the mouse, especially if the chart has many elements, some of which may be small or overlapping. If you have Tooltips turned on (in Tools → Options → OpenOffice → General → Help, select Tips), then as you move the mouse over each element, its name appears in the Tooltip. Once you have selected one element, you can press  Tab ⇆  to move through the other elements until you find the one you want. The name of the selected element appears in the Status Bar.