Line Style Formats in XY Scatter Charts
Posted by Patrick Kilgore on December 05, 2001 9:52 AM
I created an XY scatter chart (smoothed line option) with 8 data series. In order to differentiate these series when printed in black and white, I want to use varied line styles (solid, dashed, etc.) and weights. However, when I print my chart, the dashed line styles are not displayed correctly. Could this have something to do with a small data point spacing along the X axis (each series ranges between 0 and 400 along the X axis with a 5 unit spacing between data points)?
Posted by Damon Ostrander on December 05, 2001 10:46 AM
Hi Patrick,
This is very unlikely to have anything to do with point spacing, as line styles are supposed to be independent of point spacings. My guess is that it has to do with your printer or printer driver. I suggest that you try printing to a different printer (hopefully a completely different model), if you have another one available to you. It quite often occurs that different printers will handle things like gray levels, shading, line styles, etc., completely differently.
If you don't have a different printer available to you, copy your file to a floppy and take it down to a Kinko's and print it there. My guess is that you will get completely different results--although it may still not be exactly what you see on the screen.
I hope this helps.
Damon
Posted by Patrick Kilgore on December 05, 2001 11:16 AM
I tried a couple of printers, and each gave the same result. All the printouts (as well as the monitor) show dashed lines as rough-edged solid lines. When I zoom in along the X axis (e.g. x = 20 to 40 instead of 0 to 400), all line styles display and print properly. This is why I thought scaling might be a problem.
Posted by Damon Ostrander on December 05, 2001 2:20 PM
Hi again Patrick,
Well, I'm out of ideas here--sorry my idea didn't help. Maybe someone else can shed some light.
Damon
