Step 4: Formatting Options (Chart Report) |
Step 4 allows you to specify how the chart appears. There are many options in this step but they are organized into groups. A complete chart editor dialog is also available to provide complete control over the chart's appearance.The Series option at the top of Step 4 selects which series the settings apply to; this option is disabled if you did not select a series field in Step 3. This option allows you to format each series chart individually. For example, you could chart the first series as a bar chart, the second as a line chart, and the third as an area chart.
As you make changes to the various options in this step, the chart displayed in this step automatically adjusts to show you what the chart looks like using your settings. However, it does not show actual data from your database until you click the Preview button.

The Chart Type page has the following options:
- Chart type: select the type of chart you want from the drop-down list. The choices are Area, Bar, Column (the default chart type), Line, Pie, and Point.
- Multiple colors: turn this option on to display each chart element, such as a column in a column chart or a pie slice in a pie chart, in a different color.
- Bar type: this option, which is only available for bar and column charts, allows you to specify what shape to use for bars or columns. The choices are Rectangles, Cylinders, Pyramids, or Cones.
- Point type: this option, which is only available for area, line, and point charts, specifies the shape of each point in the chart. The choices are None, Rectangles, Circles, and Triangles.
- Circled: turn this option, which is only available for pie charts, on to have the chart appear as a circle; turn it off to display an oval instead.

The Titles page has the following options:
- Chart title: specifies the text, color, and font for the title of the chart. The default title is the name of the report. To change it, type a new title in the text box. To change the color of the text, click the colored square beside the title and select the desired color from the dialog that appears. To change the font or size, click the button with the ellipsis (...) and select the desired font and size from the dialog that appears.
If you want to use an expression rather than fixed text, such as a user-defined function, precede the expression with an equals sign (=). Here's an example of an expression that displays "Sales for <spelled out month> <year>" (such as "Sales for December 2001") in the chart title:
= 'Sales for ' + cmonth(date()) + ' ' + transform(year(date()))
Here's an expression that uses the built-in GetConditionValue function, which returns the value of a filter condition for the specified field, to display a header showing "Sales for " a particular country the report is filtered on:
= "Sales for " + GetConditionValue('customers.country')You must be familiar with dBase or FoxPro to use expressions.
- Category (X-axis) title: specifies the text, color, and font for the title of the category, or X, axis; this option is unavailable for pie charts since they don't have an X axis. The default title is the name of the category field. To change it, type a new title in the text box. To change the color of the text, click the colored square beside the title and select the desired color from the dialog that appears. To change the font or size, click the button with the ellipsis (...) and select the desired font and size from the dialog that appears. To set the spacing between the title and the X axis, enter the desired value for the spacing; 0 means automatically determine the spacing.
- Values (Y-axis) title: specifies the text, color, and font for the title of the value, or Y, axis; this option is unavailable for pie charts since they don't have an Y axis. The default title is the name of the values field. To change it, type a new title in the text box. To change the color of the text, click the colored square beside the title and select the desired color from the dialog that appears. To change the font or size, click the button with the ellipsis (...) and select the desired font and size from the dialog that appears. To set the spacing between the title and the Y axis, enter the desired value for the spacing; 0 means automatically determine the spacing.

The Axes page has the following options:
- Major gridlines: specifies whether major gridlines appear on the X or Y axes (depending on which option you set) and if so their color. The Automatic increment and Increment settings determine where major gridlines appear on the Y axis. For the X axis, they appear for every different category value. To change the color, click the colored square beside this setting and select the desired color from the dialog that appears.
- Minor gridlines: specifies whether minor gridlines appear on the X or Y axes (depending on which option you set) and if so their color. Minor gridlines appear between major gridlines. The number of minor gridlines between major gridlines is determined by the Tick count setting. To change the color, click the colored square beside this setting and select the desired color from the dialog that appears.
- Tick count: this option, which is only available if Minor gridlines is turned on, specifies how many minor gridlines appear between major gridlines on the appropriate axis.
- Automatic increment: if this option is turned on, which it is by default, Stonefield Query automatically determines the placement of value labels (and major gridlines if that option is turned on) on the Y axis. This value is based on the maximum value for the chart and the height of the chart.
- Increment: this option, which is only available if Automatic increment is turned off, specifies how frequent value labels appear on the Y axis. For example, a setting of 100 specifies that value labels appear at multiples of 100 (0, 100, 200, and so forth). The larger the number, the fewer the labels.

You can specify whether a legend appears on the chart using the settings on the Legend page. If a series field is used, the legend will show the different series values. If no series field is used, the legend shows the different category values. This page has the following options:
- Show legend: turn this option on to display a legend on the chart.
- Placement: this option specifies where the legend appears on the chart. The choices are Left, Right, Top, and Bottom.
- Style: use this option to specify how the legend is formatted. The choices are different if you have a series field than if no series field is used. Plain means the legend includes category names (or series names if a series field is specified) only with no values. Values at Left and Values at Right, which are only available if no series is used, mean the values for each category appear, either to the left or to the right of the category name. Percent at Left and Percent at Right, which are only available if no series is used, mean each category's value appears as a percentage of the total, either to the left or to the right of the category name. Checkboxes, which is only available if a series is used, indicates the legend includes check boxes which you can use to display or hide certain series (turn off the check box to hide a series).
- Font: the font name, size, and style to use for the text in the legend. To change any of these, click the font selection button (which appears as "...") and select the desired font name, size, and style from the Font dialog that appears.
- Color: the color to use for the text in the legend. To change the color, click the colored square beside this setting and select the desired color from the dialog that appears.
- Gradient: turn this setting on to display a gradient of color across the legend.
- From color: this option, which is only available if Gradient is turned on, specifies the starting color for the gradient. To change the color, click the colored square beside this setting and select the desired color from the dialog that appears.
- To color: this option, which is only available if Gradient is turned on, specifies the ending color for the gradient. To change the color, click the colored square beside this setting and select the desired color from the dialog that appears.
- Direction: this option, which is only available if Gradient is turned on, specifies in which direction the gradient flows. The choices are Top to Bottom, Bottom to Top, Left to Right, Right to Left, From Center, From Top Left, From Bottom Left, Radial, Diagonal Up, and Diagonal Down.

The 3D page has the following options:
- 3D chart: turn this setting on, which it is by default, to display the chart in 3 dimensions. You can also click the 3D button in the toolbar to turn on or off 3-dimensional viewing.
- Wall width: this option determines the width of the walls at the X and Y axis.
- 3D view: turn this setting on to display the chart from a perspective.
- X angle: this option, which is only available if 3D view is turned on, specifies the X angle for the view. You can also change this by clicking the rotate button (
) in the chart toolbar and clicking and dragging the chart to the desired angle. - Y angle: this option, which is only available if 3D view is turned on, specifies the Y angle for the view. You can also change this by clicking the rotate button (
) in the chart toolbar and clicking and dragging the chart to the desired angle. - Perspective: this option, which is only available if 3D view is turned on, specifies the perspective angle for the view. You can also change this by clicking the rotate button (
) in the chart toolbar and clicking and dragging the chart to the desired angle.

The Labels page has the following options:
- Display labels: turn this option on, which it is by default, to display labels for the values of the X and Y axis.
- Staggered labels: if label names are fairly long, especially in the case of category names, they can overlap each other. Turn this setting on to stagger the labels to minimize the overlap.
- Shadowed: turn this setting on to display labels with shadowed text.
- Label angle: this option specifies the angle at which the text of the label is displayed. This can also help reduce label overlap.
- Point labels: turn this option on, which it is by default, to display labels for each category in the chart. For all but pie charts, point labels appear at the top of the point for a particular data item in the chart. For pie charts, point labels appear beside each slice.
- Style: this setting, which is only available if Point labels is turned on, specifies what is displayed for point labels. The choices are Value, Percent (which shows each value as a percentage of the total), Category (the default), Category & Percent, and Category & Value.
- Multi-line: turn this setting on to display long point labels on multiple lines rather than a single long line.

The Border page has the following options:
- Border style: this setting specifies how the border of the chart appears. The choices are None (the default), Plain, Lowered, or Raised.
- Color: this setting, which is only available when Border style is set to something other than None, specifies the color of the border. To change the color, click the colored square beside this setting and select the desired color from the dialog that appears.
- Width: this setting, which is only available when Border style is set to something other than None, specifies the width of the border.
- Shadowed: turn this setting, which is only available when Border style is set to something other than None, on to display the border with a shadow.

The Background page has the following options:
- Background color: this setting, which is only available when Gradient is turned off, specifies the color of the chart background. To change the color, click the colored square beside this setting and select the desired color from the dialog that appears.
- Gradient: turn this setting on to display a gradient of color across the chart background.
- From color: this option, which is only available if Gradient is turned on, specifies the starting color for the gradient. To change the color, click the colored square beside this setting and select the desired color from the dialog that appears.
- To color: this option, which is only available if Gradient is turned on, specifies the ending color for the gradient. To change the color, click the colored square beside this setting and select the desired color from the dialog that appears.
- Direction: this option, which is only available if Gradient is turned on, specifies in which direction the gradient flows. The choices are Top to Bottom, Bottom to Top, Left to Right, Right to Left, From Center, From Top Left, From Bottom Left, Radial, Diagonal Up, and Diagonal Down.

The Size page has the following options:
- Width: specifies the width of the chart in pixels when it's output.
- Height: specifies the height of the chart in pixels when it's output.
- Orientation: the default choice, "Automatic," means that if the chart is too wide to fit in portrait orientation, it automatically switches to landscape. However, you can override this by choosing either "Portrait" or "Landscape" to force the report to be printed in the desired orientation.

The chart toolbar provides additional control over the chart. It has the following functions:
- Normal (
): returns the mouse pointer to a normal pointer. - Rotate (
): enables rotation mode. Click and drag the chart to the desired angle. - Move (
): enables movement mode. Click and drag the chart to move it to the desired position. - Zoom (
): enables zoom mode. Click and drag the chart to zoom in and out. - Depth (
): enables depth mode. Click and drag the chart to scale it to the desired depth. - 3D (
): turns on and off 3-dimensional viewing. - Edit (
): displays the Edit Chart dialog. - Copy (
): copies the chart to the clipboard.