Clever ways to do charts?
 

I first posted this question in a different thread in OGS but I suspect I might have greater luck in the omnigraffle section. Here's an edited version of my original question - thanks for reading.

I've attached a simple chart that I currently produce in a clumsy fashion in excel.

I'm looking to produce about 20 similar charts that convey a range (x-axis) of numbers for between 5 and 10 variables (y-axis). Each range has a min, max and median.

If I only had to do one chart, it wouldn't take too long to do a nice looking version in OmniGraphSketcher but, like I said, I have about 20 different variations with similar structure, but very different data, that I need to do.

Further complicating matters - two of the 20 charts needs a log-scale for the x-axis. As I only have two of those charts, I'm happy to entertain a more labor-intensive solution for those two charts, if someone has a clever way of doing log charts manually.

Am I better off getting used to the unattractive appearance that Excel gives me?

One final thought - can I import the excel chart as an image into omnigraffle and then use OG to tart up the charts? I've tried different version of importing a chart but I can't ungroup the image.

Many thanks,
EM

Omni (dave_m) provided a good reply in the other thread - linked [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?p=87075#post87075"]here[/URL]

Use the Right Tool for the Job
 

You are working at the level of using one tool to produce a result, and then another tool to change/improve the result. Several options, depending on whether you are Unix-centric or MS-centric.

1 Why don't you use one tool to do the entire job, and automate the whole process (eliminate the manual labour entirely, each time [month ?] you need to create the charts. Have a look at GNUPlot, etc. Just feed it a file (data series) and a bunch of chart parameters, and it ...

2 You might also look into Numbers (on the Mac, since you have one for OG) as opposed to Excel (on the piece of c#@p); it is a [B]lot[/B] easier to create great looking charts, directly from a .CSV file that contains data series; then mess with the graphics.

3 OGS may well do the job but I have not used it.

In both instances, I am asking you to remove yourself from your question, which has limited solutions built into it, and look at only the problem:
• you have a data series sitting in a file somewhere
• which you do not need to translate
• you want to erect a chart (a good looking one)
• you want to do that frequently
• you want to vary the charts
then choose the tool with awareness of the capabilities and limitations of each; whether you can reasonably use it for the entire task, or whether you have to use a sequence of tools.
Cheers

Try this one [URL="http://csharp.net-informations.com/excel/csharp-excel-chart-export.htm"]Excel chart export[/URL] , it will help you.

steve.