Charts and images: Creating Charts

You can create all popular chart types, both 2D and 3D. This includes column/bar charts, area charts, line, pie, scatter, contour charts and color maps. A single data series can contain up to 32 million data points. For each chart you can define up to 16 axes with separate scaling and all other parameters and add custom gridlines.

Contour charts and color map charts can use both automatic parameters and user-defined isolines and isobands.
You can mix all 2D charts on a single XY plane with the exception of the color maps as by default they should fill the entire XY chart plain.

To specify chart data series, use one of the following two methods:

  1. Select a continous range of cells containing data series in rows or columns and use one of the Insert Chart > Series In Rows/Columns commands. GS-Calc will then automatically create the corresponding data series. For example:

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  2. Use the Insert Chart command to create an empty chart and add subsequent series manually. To add a new series, click the New Series button in the Chart dialog box.

    For example, for a 2D/3D chart and for the following data:

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    the chart 1. series tab in the Chart dialog box should look like this:

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    For a scatter (XY) chart and for the following data:

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    The chart 1. series tab in the Chart dialog box should look like this:

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    If you leave the X-Data/Domain field empty, for XY chart types, GS-Calc will create a series with cardinal numbers ranging from 1 to the number of data points in "Y-Data".

    Contour charts and color map charts additionally use the 3rd, "Z" data series that assign various values to each x/y point on the XY chart plane. Then GS-Calc draws closed lines ("isolines") around groups of XY data points which have the "z" values above a given isoline value.

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    Color map charts are similar to the contour charts. The main differences are that they are intended for very large data series where isolines would be indistinguishable. Instead this chart type assigns different colors (either the default color gradient or user-defined colors) to each displayed XY data point based on the "Z" value.

    For example, the "Chart" dialog box to display a sample color map chart calculates the "Z" values for all XY point as z = sin(x) * cos(y) where x,y are in the range (0, 2*PI).

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    This chart type is to cover possibly the entire XY plane in the fastest way, so depending on the number of data points, the displayed point sizes decrease gradually from large rectangles down to pixels.

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  3. For each 2D chart you can easily add any specific labels to all data points or selected data points.
    To turn this option on, select the desirable label type on the "Chart > Style" tab as shown above.
    The first two options are "values" and "percentage" - these values are generated automatically for all points displayed on a given chart.
    The "y-labels" and "z-labels" options requires you to specify their source ranges/formulas and let you display any text/numbers for selected points. To achieve this you still need to define their ranges with the same number of cells as the main data series range, but you can leave any of them empty. It can be helpful e.g. to mark some points on path/route/trajectory charts or to additionally highlight points with certain values.
    If both "y-labels" and "z-labels" are specified at the same time, the "z-labels" takes precedence over the former. In this case, if you want to display them both at the same time, create "z-labels" as strings containing all the required information.

  4. All the chart parameters can be specified in the "Chart" dialog box.

    To apply the modified options or parameters simply click the "Apply" button.

    To edit an existing chart double-click it.

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Data entered in the Chart dialog must be of the following types:

Chart data type Must be specified as
Series name A single cell address or a plain text string, for example:
(1)  Worksheet1!$E$2
(2)  '2D Charts\sample2'!$B$24
(3)  sales in February
Chart data series,
domain, series and
domain error bars,
data categories 		A single cell range, a list of unformatted numbers (for data series), a list of text strings (for categories) or an array formula, for example:
(1)  Worksheet1!$H$1:$H$100
(2)  23 2.3 45 12.1 44
(3)  ab "c d e" "a1" "fg h" "in ""quote"""
(4)  ={1, 2, 3.1, 4.2, 5.7}
(5)  =row(b1:b100)*rand()
(6)  =mtxSeries(30, 1, 1) + 4*mtxRand(30,1,1)
Note: When entering a list of text strings, you must use quotation marks for those text strings that contain spaces or quotation marks. Additionally, such inner quotation marks must be doubled.
Chart tiles,
axis titles 		A plain text string or a single cell address, for example:
(1)  sample chart title
(2)  Worksheet1!E2

Notes: