8.3 Basic Graphing

Basic-Graphing

At a basic level, creating an Origin graph is a simple, two-step process:

1. You select your data. Origin uses the worksheet column Plot Designation to determine whether a column of values should be plotted against the X or Y axis or whether it should be used to create error bars, data labels, etc.
2. You click a button. A graph template (and optionally a Theme) is invoked that controls plot type and appearance (color, line and symbol styles, fill patterns, etc.). Your data are plotted using the template's saved settings.

To create a simple 2D graph using the worksheet column plot designations:

1. Double-click on the heading of each data column and in the Column Properties dialog box, set Plot Designation to X, Y, Z, X Error, Y Error, Label, or Disregard.
2. Highlight your worksheet data (or a range from one or more columns of worksheet data), then do one of the following:
3. Select Plot > Category tab: Graph Type (line, scatter, line + symbol, etc.).
4. Right-click on the selected worksheet data and select Plot > Category tab: Graph Type from the shortcut menu.
5. Click a button on one of the 2D graph toolbars (2D or 2D Extended).