Rich Chart Live Help

The Frequently Asked Questions list is also available here.

Templates

Rich Chart Live includes a wealth of professionally designed Chart Templates. A Template includes preset settings to customize your chart: includes convenient settings, for example for series styles, axes styles or animation. In fact, it includes everything except the data values and series colors. Templates are the perfect way to generate sophisticated charts without much work.

Rich Chart Live lists all the available templates in its first pane. You can any time select and apply a new template by selecting it from the list.

Data

The Data pane can be used to specify the source data values for your chart. These values can either be directly entered into the grid or imported from common spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice Calc or even Google Spreadsheets.

Data values entered or imported into the Data pane should use the dot (.) as decimal separator. Other than this they can include any mix of currency signs, commas or other text. For example the following values are all recognized as 1000:
- 1000
- $1000,
- $1,000
- USD $1,000.0
- USD $1,000.00 (NET Price)

To import data from a spreadsheet, simply copy the cells on the spreadsheet application (usually menu Edit > Copy or Ctrl+C), then, in Rich Chart Live's Data pane, click "Import Data" and paste (Ctrl+V or right mouse button > Paste) into the area in the middle of the window. If the first row of the imported data includes the series titles, make sure to check "Use first row as series titles". And if the first column of the imported data includes row titles, make sure to check "Use first column as row titles".

On this pane you can also manage Series and Rows: add, rename and delete as well as customizing the color for a series (in column/bar/line/area charts) or row (in pie and doughnut charts).

To learn more about Series and Rows, please see the following sections:

Series represent a sequence of values that will be used to display the chart. Series are displayed as columns in the data grid available in the Data pane, associated with their series color. The number of Series and value rows can grow as necessary.

Besides the Series columns, there are also two special columns in the grid, located to the right of the Series: the "Tooltip" and "Link" columns, which are used to display a mouse-over text tooltip and to specify a link to jump to when the user clicks over the chart values. These columns can be imported from your spreadsheet: make sure the title for the column is tooltip or link and it will be imported as such (also make sure you have "Use first row as series titles" checked in the Import Data dialog).

You can access the functionality associated with Series by clicking on the "Manage Series" button on the Data pane. This button gives access to:

• Creating a new series
• Removing series
• Changing series title
• Changing series color

You can access the functionality related with Rows values by clicking on the "Manage Rows " button on the Data pane. This button allows:

• Creating a new row
• Removing rows
• Changing row title
• Changing row color

Series Style

The chart series can be customized by choosing the series Type, Style and Sub-Type, as well as a base Color Palette for the series values. To select a style for the series, start by choosing what type of chart you desire from the Type list (Column, Bar, Line, Pie, etc.) and the Sub-Type (Clustered, Stacked or Stacked 100%; Pie and Doughnut charts have no Sub-Types). Once these settings are selected, the available Series Styles will be displayed and can be selected.

The "Display Labels" check-box controls whether labels displaying the values for each chart element appear in the chart.

Axes

The chart axes can be customized in the Axes pane by choosing the type and style, which includes the chart background, horizontal and vertical axes as well as the chart legend. A base color for the background, the position of the legend and which axes are displayed can be selected from the settings at the right-side. The precision for axes values, an angle for the axes labels and whether the background for the chart is visible can also be set in this area.

Since some chart types do not use axes - for example Pie and Doughnut, some options will not be available when these chart types are used. In this case, the Axes style will only display the background, precision and legend elements, not displaying the vertical and horizontal axes.

Animation

A Rich Chart can should include animation - Rich Chart Live includes a several effects and animations that can be applied to your chart by selecting from the list at the left-side of the Animation pane.

In the Animation pane you can also change the speed of the animation from its default "Normal" speed.

Layout

A Layout is a simple way of enhancing your Chart with extra elements like a title, axes legends, a background theme or image. A Layout can be selected on the right-side list and its fields can then be modified. Press Enter or change the cursor into another field for automatic update of the chart.

Most Layouts include the possibility to define a link which the user can click and follow (for example for more details about the chart) - a title for this link can be displayed in the "Link Text" field, while the destination URL can be set in the "http://" field. A target browser window can also be set in the "Link Target" field, if necessary.

Publish

When everything is selected, you can publish your chart to Flash or PowerPoint formats.

Publishing to Flash

Publishing to Flash allows your chart to be displayed on a website, visible on any web browser that can display Flash format (over 98% of the Internet can view Flash). To publish to Flash, simply press the "Save Flash Chart" button at the left-side of the pane and save the file, when prompted.

Publishing to PowerPoint

Publishing to PowerPoint allows your chart to display inside a PowerPoint presentation. Saving a PowerPoint .ppt file is a two-step process:

1. Press the "Save Flash Chart" button at the right-side of the pane and save the RichChart.swf file into your local disk (make sure to save it as RichChart.swf).
2. Press the "Save PowerPoint Chart" button at the right-side of the chart and save .ppt file into the same folder as the RichChart.swf previously saved.

If the "Autoplay Chart Animation" option is unchecked a click is required for the chart and its animation to display. If this option is checked and the chart inserted is in a slide show, the animation might not display when the respective slide is displayed. In both cases you can click anytime in the chart background area to play the animation sequence.

The saved .ppt file can then be opened in PowerPoint, for example to be integrated into an existing presentation.

Save Chart Project

Saving a chart project enables you to interrupt your work and continue it later. You can save your project now and retrieve it later at any time to finish it or make any modifications you like. Another benefit of saving your work is that you can send your chart project to a friend or co-worker for collaboration.

You can choose between two alternative methods to save your chart project:

1. Add to Favorites or Bookmark - your chart will be saved to your bookmarks or favorites. To later open it, just go to your bookmarks or favorites and click it.
2. Drag & Drop - to save your chart, drag & drop the provided link to your desktop. To later open it, just double click the icon that was created on your desktop.

Embed a Rich Chart in Your Blog or Website

Embedding your chart in your Blog or Website is as easy as copy & pasting the given HTML from Rich Chart Live to your site. The great advantage of this method is that you don't have to copy any file.

Problems Publishing in Internet Explorer?

If, when publishing, Internet Explorer displays at the top of the browser window, a message saying "... Internet Explorer blocked this site from downloading", you'll need to add RichChartLive.com to your non-blocked sites list. Doing this is simple and will solve the problem forever:

1. Open the Tools menu and select the last option: "Internet Options..."
2. In the Internet Options window, click on the Security tab.
3. In the Security tab, click on the Trusted Sites icon.
4. Click on the Sites button, to display the list of sites in the Trusted Zone.
5. Fill in the text box with *.RichChartLive.com
6. Uncheck the option "Require server verification..." at the bottom.
7. Click the Add button.
8. Click OK until all the windows are closed.

After these steps, Internet Explorer will no longer show download warnings for Rich Chart Live.