Graphing X Y cordinates
- Thread starter woknick
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100 x 100 what? (I.e. inches? centimeters? millimeters? twips? furlongs?)
You would use the form wizard to create an XY plot and you can resize the graphics area pretty big, but I think you run into a limit on chart size based on the chosen printer. See, Access looks at your default printer properties. It will not generate anything larger than that. If that printer is limited to, e.g., legal documents, I don't think you can size it up any larger than legal size. So 8.5 x 14 would be your limit in that case. (It does the same thing for reports, by the way...) If you have a non-standard output device and Access cannot determine its characteristics, you might have a real problem in generating big graphs. Or any graphs at all.
Or was your question related to setting the displayed range to 0-100 CHART UNITS of some kind? In that case, decidedly yes. Again, there is a form wizard for graphs. You can open the chart in design mode and override the axis settings if it gives you something other than 0-100 of your chosen units. I had better explain that...
MS Graph will attempt to maximize your use of the chart area. Fer instance, if the data range is actually between 20 and 80 units, your scale would NOT be 0-100, it would be 20-80. I'm not sure what units it will choose when the minimum and maximum are not integers, but it has a way to choose something. Most of the time it is usable. Unless you plan to publish.
I've had to build some publishable charts with Access so I understand why you might wish to force units - keeping all of your presentation in the same scale for side-by-side comparisons and the like. It is doable. You can take control of the axis scales and other formatting options pretty easily.
See also MS Knowledge Base article Q154454, regarding a known bug in some graphics situations. The article gives a simple manual workaround. Other than the glitch described in the article, the chart wizard does everything you need and even mostly asks the right questions.
One caveat, though... if the X axis is TIME-based (i.e. a DATE field), you might have a struggle on your hands. The Access interface has some very strong ideas about such graphs. Usually, very WRONG strong ideas. But if not using DATE/TIME fields, you should have no scaling problem.
One last thought. Normally, I would use Access because I'm used to it. BUT sometimes it works better when forcing results to export the table to Excel and drive the charting from there. If this is a manual operation as opposed to something you want to automate, you might possibly be better off. Excel's chart interface makes fewer incorrect assumptions and therefore is easier to control. If you are trying to automate this, it might not work quite so well. Some threads in the forum have explored charting by automation. You might at least identify some people you can ask.
OH... another "last" thought. Access allows you to create a chart and save it as a named prototype. You might manually create one chart and then do any other plotting based on the named prototype to control scaling, grid design, border design, and line design. That stored prototype is one of the better aspects of the Access chart interface.
You would use the form wizard to create an XY plot and you can resize the graphics area pretty big, but I think you run into a limit on chart size based on the chosen printer. See, Access looks at your default printer properties. It will not generate anything larger than that. If that printer is limited to, e.g., legal documents, I don't think you can size it up any larger than legal size. So 8.5 x 14 would be your limit in that case. (It does the same thing for reports, by the way...) If you have a non-standard output device and Access cannot determine its characteristics, you might have a real problem in generating big graphs. Or any graphs at all.
Or was your question related to setting the displayed range to 0-100 CHART UNITS of some kind? In that case, decidedly yes. Again, there is a form wizard for graphs. You can open the chart in design mode and override the axis settings if it gives you something other than 0-100 of your chosen units. I had better explain that...
MS Graph will attempt to maximize your use of the chart area. Fer instance, if the data range is actually between 20 and 80 units, your scale would NOT be 0-100, it would be 20-80. I'm not sure what units it will choose when the minimum and maximum are not integers, but it has a way to choose something. Most of the time it is usable. Unless you plan to publish.
I've had to build some publishable charts with Access so I understand why you might wish to force units - keeping all of your presentation in the same scale for side-by-side comparisons and the like. It is doable. You can take control of the axis scales and other formatting options pretty easily.
See also MS Knowledge Base article Q154454, regarding a known bug in some graphics situations. The article gives a simple manual workaround. Other than the glitch described in the article, the chart wizard does everything you need and even mostly asks the right questions.
One caveat, though... if the X axis is TIME-based (i.e. a DATE field), you might have a struggle on your hands. The Access interface has some very strong ideas about such graphs. Usually, very WRONG strong ideas. But if not using DATE/TIME fields, you should have no scaling problem.
One last thought. Normally, I would use Access because I'm used to it. BUT sometimes it works better when forcing results to export the table to Excel and drive the charting from there. If this is a manual operation as opposed to something you want to automate, you might possibly be better off. Excel's chart interface makes fewer incorrect assumptions and therefore is easier to control. If you are trying to automate this, it might not work quite so well. Some threads in the forum have explored charting by automation. You might at least identify some people you can ask.
OH... another "last" thought. Access allows you to create a chart and save it as a named prototype. You might manually create one chart and then do any other plotting based on the named prototype to control scaling, grid design, border design, and line design. That stored prototype is one of the better aspects of the Access chart interface.
andyski101
Andy K
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If you are trying to automate this I would like to work with you sure thats the project I am also working on currently.
I am working with 100 ft X 100ft Plots. I have x and y corrdinates that are related to individal tree locations on these plots. I want to take the locations and graphically display them on a form kind of like a scatter graph. I want to make this automatic. My data is in the thousands. It would be nice to click a button and have the form painted with the points that repersent the locations.
andyski101
Andy K
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Ok, that is big. What I am doing makes the graph from scratch but I don't think you'll have to go that far. You should be able to get away with using a PivotChart since it can make decent XY Scatter plots. I think this is the way you will want to go since it will give you a much more presentable product much quicker. You could probably setup a form with a few options such as species of tree and then use VBA and SQL to search the data and enter the correct record fields into the chart fields.
