Grapher Final

Software Manual

On

GRAPHER TM 7 Perfect 2D and 3D Graphing Software for Scientists,

Engineers & Business Professionals

Introduction to Concentration and Isotopic data plots

Submitted by:

Anita Thapalia

Dr Bridget Konter - Computer Application Class

Fall 2008

University of Texas at El Paso

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction to Grapher 1

2.0 Starting Grapher 2

2.1 Title Bar 3

2.2 Toolbars 3

2.3 Menu Bar 3

2.4 Status Bar 3

2.5 Plot Window 3

2.6 Worksheet Window 3

2.7 Managers 4

3.0 Customizing Managers 5

3.1 Property Inspector 5

3.2 Object Manager 6

3.3 Worksheet Manager 7

4.0 Line/Scatter Plot 8

4.1 Tutorial for Line/Scatter plots 9

4.2 Editing Graphs 10

4.3 Saving Graphs 12

5.0 Plotting Concentrations and Isotopic data 13

6.0 Software Significance 14

Anita Thapalia GEO 5215 Grapher manual

1

1.0 Introduction to Grapher

Grapher is a type of graphing software developed by Golden Software, Inc. It is a

useful graphing package for scientists, engineers, business professionals, or anyone who

needs to generate graphs quickly. Grapher is easy to use in creating a graph because the

user can choose a graph type by selecting the data files, and clicking the open button.

There are seven different types of graphing styles created in Grapher as shown in Table 1.

The default setting is quite satisfactory and you can customize tic mark spacing, tic

labels, axis labels, axis length, grid lines, a variety of symbols, line colors that add more

flexibility to the software.

Table 1: Grapher plot types

Linear Graphs

Bar Graphs Polar Graphs Specialty Graphs

3D aspect Graphs

3D XYZ Graphs

Contour and Surface Maps

Line plots Bar charts Polar plots (line/scatter)

Box-whisker plots

Ribbon/wall plots

3D line/scatter plots

XY Contour Data Map

Scatter plots Floating bar charts

Polar class scatter plots

Bubble plots Function plots 3D class scatter plots

XY Contour Grid Map

Class scatter plots

Histograms Polar bar plots Hi-low-close graphs

Step plots 3D bar charts XZ Contour Data Map

Step plots Category bar charts

Polar function plots

Pie charts Bar charts 3D floating bar charts

XZ Contour Grid Map

Function plots

Rose diagrams Stiff plots Floating bar chart

3D bubble plots Surface Data Map

Wind charts Ternary diagrams

Histograms Surface Grid Map

Vector plots Pie charts Surface Function Map

The cost of Grapher software is $349 which can be pre-viewed from the following

website: https://secure.hosting4less.com/goldensoftware/secureorder.shtml. The full demo

version can be obtained from software order which includes all products. Users can also

download free demos by registration at Golden Software website at

https://www.goldensoftware.com/. I am creating professional quality graphs for my thesis works

using this software.


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Grapher is used quite often in the geologic sciences and it is beneficial for different fields

like geochemistry, structural analysis, petrology, etc. Grapher can import a Microsoft Excel data

sheet, add/make changes the datasheet, and plot the graphs without any modification in rows and

columns, which is an improvement our other graphing software programs.

2.0 Starting Grapher

The Grapher starts with a title bar, menu bar, tool bars (on the top of window), plot

window (center part of window), worksheet manager, status bar (on the bottom of window), and

managers (right part of window) as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1. Grapher user interface


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2.1 Title Bar:

The title bar displays the program name and the saved Grapher file name. In Fig. 1., it is

shown as e.g. Grapher-Zn_isotope_final. The filename with astrik (*) indicates the file has been

modified.

2.2 Toolbars:

The toolbar displays all of the Grapher tool buttons which are usually shortcuts to menu

commands.

2.3 Menu Bar:

The menu bar lists the commands used to run Grapher.

2.4 Status Bar:

The status bar shows information about activities of Grapher. It has three sections. The

left section displays selected objects such as Delta 66/64 Zn T in Fig. 1. The middle section

shows the information of the cursor coordinates for both X and Y (in inches). You can covert to

other unit system from File, choose Preferences/Default settings. The right section shows the

dimensions of the selected objects.

2.5 Plot Window:

The plot window consists of graphs and graphics as shown in Fig. 1.

2.6 Worksheet Window:

The worksheet window is used to create or import data in the program. You can import

Excel files by Selecting- All types in the file type and other different file in all recognized types

as shown in the Fig. 2.


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Fig. 2. Grapher import file types

2.7 Managers:

Grapher contains four types of managers: object manager, property inspector, worksheet

manager, and the script manager. They are located under the Menu, then click on View and

choose Toolbars/Managers (Fig. 3.).


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Fig. 3. Grapher customizing Managers

3.0 Customizing Managers:

3.1 Property Inspector:

The property inspector (Fig. 4.) lists all properties for a selected object in a plot. You can

change symbol, line, fill, plot, clipping, error bars (data if available), labels, tic marks and

labels, break axis, and grid lines depending upon the object on a plot selected. Information

about object properties is available in the online help. You can uncheck the auto update box at

the bottom of the property inspector to cancel the immediate changes on the object properties.

You can use Edit/Undo for cancelling any changes that are not appropriate for use in property

inspector, if auto update is checked.


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Fig. 4. Property Inspector

3.2 Object Manager

The object manager (Fig. 5) displays the hierarchical list of the objects in a Grapher plot

window. You can display the property of an object in the property inspector by selecting it. You

can click on ‘+’ or ‘-‘ icon to expand or collapse the list, respectively. The display order of

objects can be changed by selecting an object and dragging in a new position in the list with

mouse. It can be done by using Arrange in the menu window. The selected objects can be

renamed through Edit - Rename object from Menu command or by right clicking and choosing

Rename object. You can make the object invisible on the plot by clicking the Uncheck box in

the object manager. The object can be selected and deleted by using Delete key (Remember:

You cannot delete an axis used by a plot until the plot is on screen).


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Fig. 5. Object Manager

3.3 Worksheet Manager

The worksheet manager (Fig. 6.) in Grapher can be opened by using File/Open to open a

data file in the worksheet window. You can directly type the data into a worksheet or copy data

from other application and paste into a worksheet. You can also choose File/New to open a new

worksheet. You can modify format, edit data, plot new graph, save and print the worksheet by

clicking right on the first row of the worksheet data. You can perform some basic calculations

choosing the Data and then Statistics, by right clicking on the data cell (Fig. 7.). Grapher can

plot data from more than one worksheet by adding different X and Y axes. The worksheet

manager allows viewing the multiple data files which can be displayed in a tabbed format. You

can also see the multiple worksheets used in the plot by scrolling the worksheet in the property

manager.


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Fig. 6. Worksheet Manager

Fig. 7. Data modification in the Worksheet Manager

4.0 Line/Scatter Plot

Line/Scatter type of plot can be used to plot most professional appearance for the

publication purposes (Fig. 7 & 8). Grapher can easily accept data from more than one

worksheet in the same plot. As an example, in Geochemistry, it is used for plotting

concentrations vs. different steps of an experiment; concentration vs. depth of the various

metals in given a constant depth. The different steps of an experiment are Total, Organic,

Exchangeable, Fe-oxide fractions of the metals such as Zn, Cu, Fe, As, Pb, etc. can be plotted

so efficiently with the corresponding depth (of the sediment core).


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4.1 Tutorial for Line/Scatter plots

The following steps will assist the user in creation of well labeled Line/Scatter plot for

concentration of metals vs. depth data for geochemical applications.

1. Start Grapher and a blank plot window will open, along with a worksheet manager,

property inspector and object manager windows (default). You can also start by opening

a File, choose new, select plot and click ok. You can create graphs from the plot window

Graph menu, or with graph wizard, or from the worksheet or templates. Choose plot

type line/scatter in the 2D graphs inside the Graph menu on the menu bar.

2. After clicking line/scatter, the open worksheet window will pop open and you can

import an Excel data file or other data formats as shown in Fig. 2. You can import excel

data files directly by selecting the spreadsheet and click on open. There is no need to

change the rows and columns of data as the worksheet manager will display the same

format as Excel does.

3. By default, Grapher will choose X column and Y column in property inspector as column

B and column C respectively, from the worksheet to plot the data. You can change the

position of X and Y axes, shift the tic marks by clicking position on the Axis properties

in Property Inspector.

4. Now, go ahead and change the X column by scrolling down the column number

displaying the order of column list exactly as in the data sheet. You can choose your

desired data column. As an example, Pb concentration column is selected as X axis 1.

Same applies to the depth in Y column (Fig. 8.).

5. After you specify the columns, if you wish to plot the different set of plots from the same

column, specify the worksheet rows in the property inspector. As an example, the

dataset for Pb has been entered in the same column from different data under subheading

Total, Organic, Exchangeable, Fe-oxide fractions. So, for the required plot such as Total

Pb, you have to specify the first row and last row by changing to custom and plugging the


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number from worksheet. This way the user can plot the required set of data from one

column. If you add another plot with the Pb Organic concentrations data set, you have to

specify the worksheet rows keeping columns the same.

6. Now add another set of data to the earlier plot. To add Pb Fe-oxide data in the same plot,

you have to click on the plot area. After it has been selected, right click and choose add

plot and select line/scatter plot on select plot type. After that, it will ask you to choose

axes, click ok to add on the same X and Y axes of earlier plot. Then, an open worksheet

window pops open and you can import another data set in the worksheet manger if you

have data in different files. Otherwise, you can choose the same file again.

7. Upon completion, you can see a new line/scatter plot 2 added to the object manger with

the earlier X axis 1, Y axis 1 and line/scatter plot 1 under graph 1.

8. Plot the desired data on X axis by specifying the X and Y column and worksheet rows.

You can keep the constant depth and plot the different concentrations of Pb data.

9. Follow the steps 7 to 9 to add another Pb dataset with respect to the same depth.

4.2 Editing Graphs:

Each plot has separate properties and the user can specify the data columns and rows,

symbols, color, and line thickness by clicking on it and choosing from list of options and charts

in the property inspector for professional touch.

1. The Plot tab allows you to change the worksheet, axes, data column and rows.

2. The Symbol tab is very useful in changing appropriate symbol set and size, fill color.

3. The Line tab allows manipulating the lines and their thicknesses.

4. The Clipping tab helps with manipulating minimum and maximum data range for both X

and Y axes.

5. Select axis and you can edit axis, gridlines, tick marks, tick labels, break axis and line.


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6. You can add title by clicking on the Axis tab. It will allow labeling title with the Text

Editor Box, all text functions are available. The position of the label can be customized

efficiently.

7. You can add a plot title by clicking on “A” on the left side of screen, which opens up the

Text Editor Box.

8. Select the plot and right click and choose add legend to add legend box. You can

specify name, font, and size of the legend box within the property inspector.

9. You can add more than one plot in one page by opening new plot and then copy and

paste the plots of each metal to compare their concentrations as shown in Fig. 9. You can

also add graphics, lines, and symbol from the Draw on the Menu bar to illustrate data.

Fig. 7. Worksheet for line/Scatter plot


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0 200 400 600 800 1000

50

40

30

20

10

0

Dep

th (c

m)

ExchangeableOrganicFeOxideTotal Digestion

Pb Concentration (ppm)

Fig. 8. 2D Line/Scatter plot

4.3 Saving Graphs

After completion of all graphs in the plot window, you can save the graph to a Grapher

file (.GRF) or a Grapher project file (.GP). These files save all the scaling, formatting, and

parameters preserved in a file. Choose File/Save command to save and you can also Save As

for earlier saved plot. You can export graphs in portable formats commonly used for other

programs.


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0 20 40 60 80

50

40

30

20

10

0

Dep

th (

cm)

ExchangeableOrganicFeOxideTotal Digestion

As

0 1 2 3

Cu

PPM0 200 400 600 800

Zn

0 200 400 600 8001000

Pb

PPM PPM PPM

Concentration vs. Depth Plot

Fig. 9. Example for Multiple Line/Scatter plot

5.0 Plotting Concentrations and Isotopic data:

Two different data sets of concentration and isotopic data are used in geochemistry to show the relationship between them. This type of line/scatter plot can be used to see the variation between two variables with respect to the constant Y axis.

The user can follow the same procedure to make scatter/line plot for concentration data and axis by selecting the plot and right click on it. The add axis option allows the users to choose another X or Y axis and specify the position of the axis. Following the same procedure, you can able to plot the isotopic data. Data provided for isotopes have 2 sigma errors which can be plotted on the Error Bars tab in the property inspector. You can specify the bar length, color, and thickness as shown in the Fig. 9.


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0 10 20 30 401800

1850

1900

1950

2000

0 0.2 0.4

Zn MARδ66/64 ZnT

Zn Sedimentation rate (MAR) vs Isotopic data

δ66Zn

Age

Zn MAR(µg/cm2/yr)

Fig. 10. Line/Scatter Plot for Concentration and Isotopes vs. Calculated Age

6.0 Software Significance

This manual has provided users a start up guide for Grapher software. You can clearly

visualize how much flexibility Grapher offers. Grapher is user friendly and the window is

familiar to Surfer too (most users also use Surfer software). Users can plot polar, vector and

bubble plots which are not available in all plotting software. There is no drawback for this

software. It has a lot of functions for the graphs and each property specifications. The database


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file is same as Excel files which make the software handy rather than change the format of data

file. You can create fancy graphs within a fairly short amount of time. Diagrams/Plots using

this software provide more free space in manuscripts and much more clarity in plotting and

locating points.

Grapher is highly appreciated in the field of geochemistry; and users can manipulate their

data from other disciplines with this guide. This software is quick and fun to learn and online

help is easy to understand at http:// www.goldensoftware.com. The wide applicability of

Grapher really helps users to explore and utilize datasets in their own fields. It is worth

learning.

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