Gobe Productive User's Guide - Creating a Chart

- Designing graphics
- Building a Word Processing document
- Developing a spreadsheet
- Creating a chart
- Laying-out a presentation
- Touching up a picture
- Being Productive: Tips for Integrating and Getting the Most from Gobe Productive

# Creating a Chart

In this section, you will learn how to create a simple chart from a spreadsheet. Charts visually display the relationships between different series of data. Charts must be created from at least one series of data.

This section contains the following exercises:

Using the Spreadsheet | Enter Data | Create the Chart
Changing the Chart Type | Change the Legend | Change the Color of Symbols
Working with a Chart | Printing a Chart | Conclusion

## Launch Gobe Productive and Begin a New Document

- Run Gobe Productive.
- When the New Document window displays, select Spreadsheet and click OK. This starts a new spreadsheet document.

## Using the Spreadsheet

If you need help working with the spreadsheet, see the previous topic Developing a Spreadsheet, or the Spreadsheet section of this User's Guide.

## Enter Data

To create a chart, you must have data to chart. We can use the example from the previous topic which tracked the expenses of an automobile. You should have a spreadsheet similar to the following:

## Create the Chart

Select all the rows and columns you want to graph. Make sure to select the headers for the rows and columns. The charting utility will use this for naming the ranges on the chart. In the previous example, you should select cells A2 through cell F9.

1. From the Frame menu, select Insert Frame, and then select Chart Frame. You can also click the chart tool to insert a new chart. The application creates a chart of the data you selected.

## Changing the Chart Type

You can easily change the type of chart. There are four chart types: bar, pie, line, and XY charts. There are also 3-D versions of each of these chart types except XY charts.

1. Right-click on the chart frame.
2. From the popup menu, select Chart Type.
3. Select the type and variation of the chart you want.

Some types of data are not intended for some chart types. For example, XY charts graph data points made up of two coordinates. Pie charts on the other hand are intended to show the composition of a single series of data. If a particular chart appears odd, it may be because the chart type is not suited for the data you selected.

## To Change the the Legend

1. In the chart legend, right click on the data series you want to change. A pop up menu is displayed. Select Legend Symbols from the popup menu.
2. A palette of shapes is displayed. Select the shape you wish to use for the data series. Select None to remove any existing shapes. The shape is added to the chart.

## To Change the Color of Symbols

1. In the chart legend, right click on the data series you want to change. A pop up menu is displayed (shown above). Select Symbol Color from the popup menu.
2. A palette of colors is displayed. Select the color you wish to use for the symbol (this can be different then the data series color). The menu item displays the current ink set active for the document. See the topic Customizing Ink Sets in the Graphics section for more information about customizing color sets.

## Working with a Chart

A chart frame is like any other frame. When selected, it behaves like a graphic item. Therefore, you can apply a fill color, border, even rotate the chart like any other graphic item. Likewise, the actual chart and legend within the chart frame are graphic items as well. You can apply graphics formatting to these items as well as the entire frame.

Try experimenting with the charts. With a little imagination and practice, you can create some great looking and informative charts. You might want to try making a 3-D chart. Select the actual chart graphic within the charting frame and then use the arrow keys to rotate the chart. 3-D charts, unlike flat charts, can be rotated for viewing from many perspectives. Give it a try and see what comes up.

## Printing a Chart

See the Printing a Document topic for more information about how to print.

## Conclusion

In this topic, you learned how to create and edit a chart. As you can see, charting in the Gobe Productive suite is very easy. If you want more information about spreadsheets and charting, see the Spreadsheets section.

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