Customizing Graph Page Elements

The Plot Details dialog box page-level tabs provide controls for setting the page size, graph page drawing and redrawing behaviors, background color, the graph legend text.

Setting the graph page orientation

Graphs can be presented in landscape or portrait page orientations.

To change the page orientation of the active graph window:

1. Select File: Page Setup. This menu command opens the Page Setup dialog box.
2. In the Orientation group, select the Portrait or Landscape radio buttons.

or

1. Right-click in the gray area outside the graph page (but inside the graph window).
2. From the shortcut menu, select Edit: Rotate Page (Note that the Rotate Page shortcut menu command has no affect when the page viewing mode is set to Draft View or Window View).

When you change the page orientation by either of the above methods, Origin reverses the Width and Height Dimensions on the Print/Dimensions tab of the page's Plot Details dialog box

Setting the graph page size

The default graph page size is determined by the printable area of your particular printer. For the most part, you won't need to change the size of the page. For instance, if you intend to insert a graph as an embedded object in an MS Word document, you can adjust the size of the embedded graph using controls in MS Word. However, if you are trying to create a graph for graphic export and you need a graph of a certain size, you will need to adjust the page size before exporting. Settings on the Print/Dimensions tab of the Plot Details dialog box control graph page size and the printing of crop marks (useful for printing graphs across multiple sheets).

To open the (Plot Details) Print/Dimensions tab:

1. With the graph active, select Format: Page. This opens the Plot Details dialog box.
2. Select the Print Dimensions tab if it is not already selected.

Setting graph page color

To set a page color:

1. Select Format: Page when the graph window is active.

or

1. Double-click in the gray area to the right of the graph page.

Both actions open the Plot Details dialog box with the graph page icon selected on the left side of the dialog box.

1. Select the Display tab on the right side of this dialog box and use the Background controls to set the page color.

The"Master Items" feature

Origin provides a Master Items feature to simplify the global annotation of graphs. Construct a master page to display a consistent background, a company logo, or other labels and images on all or selected graph windows in your project.

Before using this feature, you must create your master page. The master page graph window should contain the objects and background that you want to display on other graph windows. Start by doing one of the following:

• Customize the display of any graph window and then rename the graph window master. This name is reserved for master pages.
• Origin provides a graph template, MASTER.OTP, in which the axes and labels are hidden, and a background color is set. You can open this template, customize it by adding company logos, labels, etc. and rename the window as master.

To customize MASTER.OTP:

1. Select File: New.
2. Select Graph.
3. Select Master from the (Template) Name drop-down list (in the Origin program folder).
4. Click OK.

After customizing the window, rename it to master.

Controlling the display of "Master Items"

Once you created and named your master page, you can display master items in other graph windows in the current project. There are two things you need to know about using this feature:

First, you can control whether or not the master items are included when you export, copy, or print the graph window. This is a graph page-specific control, set on each graph page's Plot Details dialog box:

1. Select Format: Page to open the Plot Details dialog box.
2. Select the Display tab.
3. Select the Use Master Items check box.

To reiterate, when this box is selected, master items are included when you export, copy, or print this graph window (can also be applied to a layout window -- see below).

Secondly, you can control whether or not the master items display as you view the graph in the Origin session:

1. Activate any graph window.
2. Select View: Show: Master Items on Screen.

Note that this menu command is not available if the Plot Details Use Master Items check box is cleared.

Additional "Master Items" notes

To open a graph window based on the MASTER.OTP template type the following, either at the command line or in your LabTalk script:

win -t plot master Master;

In addition to opening a graph window from the template, this script renames the window Master.

To display master items exclusively in portrait or landscape page orientation, you could instead rename your master graph window portrait or landscape. These window names are reserved for use by the master items feature.

If you have renamed your graph window portrait and you open a second graph window that is also in the portrait page orientation, then you select View: Show: Master Items on Screen, the objects in the portrait graph window display in the second graph window (assuming the Plot Details Use Master Items check box is selected).

You can also include master items in layout page windows. However, by default, the Use Master Items check box in Layout Page Details is cleared (To open the Layout Page Details dialog box, activate the layout page and choose Format: Layout Page from the menu). Therefore, select this check box to include master items when exporting, copying, or printing. To display the master items when viewing the layout page in Origin, you must also select the View: Show: Master Items on Screen menu command.