Issue 58

Easy Axis Edits to Enhance a Graph

Sometimes, in the process of making your graph, you may find that your axis is depicting something that you do not want to display. Or, you may find that you want more information showing on your axis. This article is designed to help you accomplish these common axis edits quickly and easily.

Changing Tick Mark Settings
If your axis is showing too few or too many tick marks, it cannot adequately convey information to the reader. To change the number of tick marks, click once on the axis in the object manager or on the plot window.

Select the axis in the object manager.

Once the axis is selected, all of the properties of the axis become available in the Property Inspector. Click on the Tick Marks tab. You can then open the Major ticks section to change the Spacing. This controls how many ticks are shown on the graph. In this example, I would like major tick marks spaced every 5 units on the axis. So, I change the Spacing to 5.

Change the Spacing on the property inspector’s Tick Marks tab.

You can also change the number of smaller, or minor, tick marks on the graph. Usually, these are not labeled, but do help the reader understand the graph. For this reason, you may want to control the size or number of minor tick marks. To do this, select the axis and open the Tick Marks tab. Open the Minor ticks section. You can then change the Divisions or Length of the minor ticks. In addition, you can open the Minor line section and change the line color, width, or style, as well. I would like to show 1 smaller tick mark every unit, so I am going to change the Divisions to 5. This means that there are 5 sections between every major tick mark. Since the major tick marks have a Spacing of 5, having 5 divisions between major ticks will put a minor tick mark at every unit. Only four minor ticks will be displayed to break the area into 5 divisions.

Changing the Divisions changes the number of
minor tick marks displayed on the axis.

Sometimes, it is not the number of ticks that is causing difficulty reading the graph. Rather, it is the starting or ending tick mark overlapping other information in the graph. Or, you may want to highlight part of the graph by only displaying tick marks in this section. This also can be changed on the axis. With the axis still selected, open the Tick Marks tab. Open the Tick range section. You can then change the First tick value or Last tick value, depending on which tick marks you do not want to display. For instance, if you want to highlight a portion of the graph from 15 to 30, you could change the First tick value to 15 and the Last tick value to 30.

Change the settings in the Tick range section to highlight a
section of the graph, as in the below graphic.

Only tick marks in this section of the graph would then be displayed.

This graph shows tick marks only in a highlighted section of the axis.

Changing Tick Label Settings
Once you get the number of tick marks and the location of the tick marks correct, you may want to add additional information to the labels. For instance, you can add prefix or suffix information to the labels. You can also change the font size, color, or frequency of the labels on the axis.

In the example above, we have major tick marks every 5 units. But, what if we only want to label every other mark? This is controlled on the Tick Labels tab. After selecting the axis, click on the Tick Labels tab to open it. Open the Major labelssection. You can then change the Frequency to 2 to display every other label, 3 for every third label, 4 for every fourth, and so on. You can also change the Angle to rotate the labels. You may decide to make the graph easier to read to have the labels at a 45 degree angle. You can click on the Angle command and change it to 45 to tilt the labels.

The Frequency has been changed to show every other label.
The Angle has been changed to show tilted labels.

To change size, color, or other formatting, click on the Label format command where it says Click here to set label format. ALabel Format dialog opens. To change the font, click the dropdown list under Face and choose a new font. To change the size, change the Points. To change the color, click the Color box and choose a new color. To add a prefix or a suffix or change other options, click on the Format tab. For instance, you may decide that you want to have two digits after the decimal. If so, select Fixed for the Numeric Format and change the Digits after decimal point to 2. You may also want a type in a descriptor in the Prefix or Suffix box. Here, I have included units as a Suffix.

After changing the Suffix and the Numeric Format,
labels will now have two digits after the decimal and each
label will contain the word feet after the number.

Adding or Removing Date/Time Labels
Date/time labels in Grapher are automatic if the data is in a recognized format. But, occasionally, you have data that is not recognized or you may want to have date or time labels displayed even if your data is not in date format. Alternatively, you may have dates in your worksheet in the default column for your graph. After changing the columns, you will find that the date/time labels are still present. Either situation can easily be changed. To do so, with the axis still selected, open the Tick Labels tab. Open the Major label text section. Check the Use date/time format option to show date/time format labels. Uncheck the box to use regular numeric labels.

Check the Use date/time format box to
display date/time in the tick labels.

After checking the box beside Use date/time format, you may decide that you want a different format for the date labels. The default label is month/day/year (such as 11/21/07). If you want a different format, open the Tick Labels tab. Open the Major label section. Click on the Label format command where it says Click here to set label format. Click on the Format tab. On the bottom right side of the dialog, change the Date/Time Format to the desired option.

Select the desired format in the dropdown list under Date/Time Format.

After you click OK, the changes will be made to the graph.

Date labels are shown on the graph in the desired format.

Adding Grid Lines
One final change to the graph that is often desired is grid lines. Grid lines help the reader locate the value of individual points or bars quickly. And, changing the color or width of grid lines can make the graph even easier to read. To add grid lines to your graph, select the desired axis and open the Grid Lines tab in the property inspector. If you only want grid lines to be displayed where there are major tick marks, check the At major ticks box. If you want them at both major and minor tick locations, check the At major ticks box and the At minor ticks box. You can change the color of the tick marks by opening the Major line properties or Minor line properties sections and changing the Color.

Adding grid lines to the graph increases the reading ease for the user.
Here, white grid lines on the Y axis make the values of the bars easier to read.