HOW-TO: Common Tasks with ChartMechanic

How do I rotate/flip my chart 90°?
How do I place a background image in my chart?
How do I change the chart title?
How do I change where the legend is located?
How do I hide or show the legend?
How do I change the spacing of labels on an axis?
How do I import data from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet?
How do I import data from a spreadsheet on Google Docs?
How can I see two series on the same chart? One or more of my series do not show up.
How can I change a chart's description text (the words on the lower left of the chart)?

How do I rotate/flip my chart 90°?

In the chart editor, activate the Plot popup editor, by clicking on the edit icon . It is to the right of Plot Type in the chart editor.

From there, you can set the Orientation property to be either HORIZONTAL or VERTICAL.

Chart Editor -> Plot Type -> Orientation

How do I place a background image in my chart?

First, you'll need to upload the desired image into the resource persistence area for your account. Click on the upload icon in the "Files" tab. Supported graphical file formats are JPEG, PNG, and GIF.

Once your image is uploaded, activate the Background editor, click the Background Image browse button , and select the file name of your image.

You can change the image transparency by adjusting the Background Image Opacity slider.

 Files Tab -> Upload File -> Upload Image
 Chart Editor -> Background -> Background Image -> Browse Image Button -> Your "images" folder -> select image
 Chart Editor -> Background -> Background Image Opacity

How do I change the chart title?

In the chart editor, activate the Title popup editor, by clicking on the edit icon . From there, you can set the Text property to the title you want.

 Chart Editor -> Title -> Text

How do I change where the legend is located?

In the chart editor, activate the Legend popup editor, by clicking on the edit icon . From there, you can edit the Position and Alignment properties for the legend.

 Chart Editor -> Legend -> Position
 Chart Editor -> Legend -> Horizontal Alignment
 Chart Editor -> Legend -> Vertical Alignment

How do I hide or show the legend?

In the chart editor, activate the Legend popup editor, by clicking on the edit icon . From there, you can check/uncheck the legend's Visible property.

 Chart Editor -> Legend -> Visible

How do I change the spacing of labels on an axis?

 Chart Editor -> Axis -> Tick Labels -> Tick Unit

The Tick Unit expresses spacing between each tick label on the axis.
For numeric (Y) axes, the Tick Unit is a number for the label frequency.
On a date-based axis (e.g., the X axis of a time series chart), the Tick Unit is expressed as a number of time units. For example, you can have a tick label every 2 years or every 3 months, etc.

How do I import data from a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet?

Excel - Cut & Paste Method
A quick, simple way to get your Excel spreadsheet data into ChartMechanic is simply to cut & paste a block of rows and columns from an Excel sheet into the "Past/Enter Data Values" area of a data source definition:

 (New Data  OR New Chart ) -> Paste/Enter Data -> Paste Excel cells into data area

ChartMechanic will read the cells of your spreadsheet as tab-separated values, and all spreadsheet formulas will be evaluated normally. You can then proceed through the rest of the data definition steps as usual.

Excel - File Upload Method
Alternately, you can upload a .xls into your ChartMechanic persistence directly.

 (New Data  OR New Chart ) -> External Data -> Upload Button  -> Upload XLS file

If your Excel workbook has multiple pages (sheets), you will be asked to pick one of the pages for defining your data source. At this time, spreadsheets in the Excel '97 - 2007 formats are specified (file extension .XLS). The newer Office Open XML format (file extension .XLSX) will be supported in a future release of ChartMechanic.

How do I import data from a spreadsheet on Google Docs?

 (New Data  OR New Chart ) -> External Data -> Data URL -> Google spreadsheet URL

To import a spreadsheet from Google Docs as a Data Source, cut & paste the spreadsheet's URL during the data definition step of the Chart or Data Source wizard.

If the spreadsheet in question is not shared publicly, you will be prompted for a username & password in order to access the data. If the spreadsheet is public, it can be accessed by anyone, and no username/password is necessary. For example:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pjoWJxgUx4FjZfikOH1E1dQ

How can I see two series on the same chart? One or more of my series do not show up.

Frequently this happens because series with very different Y values are assigned to the same Y axis. For example, if series A has Y values ranging from 1 - 10, and series B's Y values range from 9,000 - 10,000, you will not see the smaller series (A) if they are both on the same Y axis.

To make both series visible, assign one of them a different Y axis number in the Series Editor:

 Series Editor -> Y Axis -> [ 0 - 3 ]

Sometimes a series will not be visible if the NUMBER values for its Y, or VALUE column cannot be read as numbers. To check, click the button for the series in question. If the X or Y column values for the series are mostly empty, then there is likely a problem in how the data is defined. Check that the column from the raw data source really contains valid numbers.

How can I change a chart's description text (the words on the lower left of the chart)?

To change the description of a chart:

 File Menu -> Edit Description

And then edit the description text in the dialog popup. The amount of text that will actually be visible in the chart is limited to 5 lines, with a maximum of 100 characters per line. However, all of the text in the description will be considered keywords for the chart, and will included in the ChartMechanic search index.