Getting Started – DataGraph Community

DataGraph is a professional graphing and data analysis application for scientists, engineers, and analysts. Here are a few instructions to get you started.

Open Files

A DataGraph file is like a workbook that can contain data, notes, settings, commands and graphics, all in one adjustable panel display.

To create a new file, click the ‘New File’ button on the Example files window (bottom right), or select File > New (⌘-N). A new blank file will contain access to commands and settings, but does not have any data or graph elements.

When you first open the program, you see the example file window. This is a searchable list of files that you are free to use and modify. You can access this list using File > On-line examples (⇧-⌘-N).

If you open an example file, you will see the same basic elements as above, but now the file is populated with data, notes, and graphs. For example, below is the Line Plots example in the Basic section of the example files.

Line Plots Example File with EU Stock Market Data

The user interface has several options for customization, such as detaching the active graph window, swapping the data and commands, or using the alternate screen mode designed for small screens.

Learn more in the User Interface section of the Knowledge base.

Enter Data

Data can be entered manually into the data table or using a simple copy and paste. To enter data manually, you will first need to add a column from either of the four main types: number, text, expression or dates.

In the example video below, the small toolbar buttons are used to create two number columns. The third column is a expression column which contains a formula. The values in this column are calculated automatically when the formula is entered.

Entering and Subtracting Two Number Columns

Learn more in the Enter Data section of the Knowledge base.

Import Data

To quickly import a file, you can drag-n-drop from the finder. Drag-n-drop works for any file type that DataGraph understands, including txt, csv, xls, and more.

The following example shows a file called ‘Airmiles.csv’ imported using drag-n-drop onto the data table.

The Airmiles dataset was obtained from the R datasets package. You can download a copy below (In Safari, right-click on the button and select ‘Download Linked File’) . Then try importing as shown above.

Download Airmiles.csv

To learn more, see the Import Data section of the Knowledge Base.

Edit Data

The DataGraph data table allows you to delete, move, and group columns of data. You can edit data using the data table or using the corresponding objects in the data side-panel.

The ‘Airmiles.csv’ file, imported in the prior section, has a column of row IDs that are not needed, as the data table has a built-in row counter on the left-side.

This video points out the built-in row counter and shows how to delete the redundant imported column. First, the column is deleted using the data table. Next, the column is deleted using the data side-panel.

DataGraph also has tools for exploring data that give you a quick sense of a column of number or relationships between columns. Highlight one or more columns and hit the space bar to get a QuickGraph.

Learn more in the Edit Data section of the Knowledge base.

Create Graphs

Graph elements are added using drawing commands. Commands draw lines, bars, pies, or functions. For some commands, you can preselect the data in the table, then add the command.

When you add a command, an object is added to the user interface that contains all the options for that particular command.

In the example below, two number columns are selected and a Plot command is added from the toolbar. The command draws the line. The command options are customized for color, line thickness, and points.

Short tutorials of the following graph types are available:

Commands can also analyze data, such as drawing histograms, calculate summary statistics, or fit data to functions. They can also be used to annotate your graph with text, regions, and legends.

Click the Draw and Label icons to see the full list of commands. Click the Add button to add a commands to the active graph. Click the question mark to the right to access the help article for that command.

For detailed documentation, see the Drawing commands section of the Reference manual.

You can also explore data using the graph. Click and drag on the active graph to zoom in on a section. Or use Learn how to use the Loop & Hover tools to explore data values on the canvas.

Customize Graphs

Creating a custom graph is a combination of layering different drawing commands and varying command options. Each command is a essentially a drawing layer. You can add as many as you like to a graph. The layers are drawn from top to bottom in the command list.

You can also control the size, labels, font, colors, gridlines and more using the Layout settings: Style settings, Axis settings, and Canvas settings.

In this graph, two Region commands were added to note the time periods of the two wars. The font color, font sizes, and gridlines are customized in the Style settings. The background color is set in the Canvas settings. The padding on the x-axis is set in the Axis settings.

To learn more, see the How to Customize graphs section of the Knowledge base.

Export Images

You can quickly get an image from DataGraph to another program by copying and pasting. Use Edit > Copy Figure (⇧-⌘-C) or control-click on the graph itself and select Copy > Copy Figure. Once copied, you can paste the image into documents or presentations directly.

To output an image file, select File > Export Graphic. Select from png, tiff, jpg, svg, eps, pdf. Export one graph at a time or batch export a series of graphs.

For more information, see the Export section of the Knowledge Base.

Next Steps…

In addition to reviewing the Basic Graphing articles (links below), here are some other resources:

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel.
Browse the How to section of the Knowledge base.
Join the community to ask a question on the Getting Started forum.

When you’re ready for more, explore our Reference Manuals.

Knowledge Base