Format graph

Command:	Format Graph
Button:

Description

Click the button in the Formatting toolbar to format a graph. The effects of the changes in the left panels (displayed below) of the dialog box can be previewed in the right panel:

Graph titles

In this box you can edit the main text sections (titles and two axes) of the graph.

After clicking the OK button, the graph will be replotted with the new titles and text.

Graph axes

In this dialog box you can define the scaling of the X and/or Y-axis by entering the following information.

• Minimum: this is the lowest value that appears on the utmost left of the X-axis or bottom of the Y-axis;

• Maximum: this is the highest value that appears on the utmost right of the X-axis or top of the Y-axis;

• Increment: the increment value between two major grid lines;

• Minor tickmarks: the number of minor tickmarks between two major increments.

In MedCalc, the default increments are 1, 2 or 5 times a power of ten, yielding about 6 to 10 major tickmarks. If you are preparing a graph for publication, you are advised (Tukey, 1977) to limit the number of major tickmarks to about 2 or 3, so you will have to increase the value for increment, preferably also steps of 1, 2 or 5 times a power of 10.

If a logarithmic transformation of the data was selected in the graph's dialog box, then the information for the lowest value (Minimum) and Increment must be logarithmic values as well (e.g. for Minimum enter -2 for the value 0.01, or 0 for the value 1, 3 for the value 1000, etc.). Increment is then the exponent increment and should preferentially remain equal to 1.

After clicking the OK button, the graph will be replotted using the new axis scaling. However, the program will ignore a new axis scaling if this new scaling would cause data to fall outside the full axis range.

Graph colors

In the graph colors dialog box you can select a color for every object used in the graph.

• Schemes: allows selection of a predefined or customized color scheme. A color scheme also includes the Fills, Lines and Marker style and color selections.
• Graph objects: in order to change the color of a particular graphical object, e.g. the grid color, you first select the object in the Graphs objects list and next use the Color for object selector to select a color.
  • The Background fill color is the color used to fill markers or the boxes in a box-and-whisker plot.
  • The Warning color is used to highlight far out values in box-and-whisker plots, or to highlight measurements that violate selected control rules in a control chart.

  Note that when for a particular object you specify the same color as the Background fill color, this object will not be displayed.

• Options
  • Display grid: displays gridlines in the graph.
  • Plot area border: XY only: when this option is selected, lines for the X and Y axes are drawn. If this option is not selected, the plot area is enclosed in a rectangle.
  • Outside tickmarks: select this option to have the tickmarks drawn on the outside of the graph frame.
• Background: two colors can be selected for the background color. The "From" color is the color at the top of the display and the "to" color is the color at the bottom of the display. By selecting different colors for "from" and "to", you obtain a color gradient.

• Manage schemes: used to save the currently defined color selections as a named scheme for later use. This option should also be selected when you want to delete a color scheme, or to restore the predefined color schemes.
• Set as default: the current color selections are saved and used as the default colors for new graphs.

Fills

In this dialog box you can select the eight fill styles (or patterns) and/or fill colors MedCalc uses for chart bars fills. First select the series you want to modify, and next select the Style or Color buttons to modify the fill pattern and color. The first fill style/color combination is the fill style and color MedCalc uses if only one fill series is used in the graph (e.g. histogram).

When more than one fill pattern is required in a graph (e.g. in Frequencies bar chart), MedCalc will use the first fill pattern/color combination, and next, as required, the second, third, etc.

To save the selected fill styles and colors for future use, go to the Colors tab and click Set as default.

Lines

In this dialog box you can select the styles and colors of the lines used in the graph. First select the series you want to modify, and next select the Style or Color buttons to modify the line style and color.

To save the selected line styles and colors for future use, go to the Colors tab and click Set as default.

Markers

In this dialog box you can select the styles and colors of the markers used in the graph. First select the series you want to modify, and next select the Style or Color buttons to modify the marker style and color.

To save the selected marker styles and colors for future use, go to the Colors tab and click Set as default.

Font

In this box you can select the font, font style and font size used in the graph. The font Sample box (in which you can enter text freely) ignores the selected font size. The effect of font size can be seen in the Preview box.