Aligning Graphs and Pie charts?

[grant.smith]

Hi,

I am creating a document which is jam packed with graphs and pie charts.

How can I align these when the align pallet ignores pie charts, and the transform pallet does not register it either?

I do not want to outline the pie chart as I am creating the templates and do not have the info at present.

Any tutorial on graphs a pie charts may be of use as I find that whole section of Illustrator quite frustrating to use.

Thanks

Grant

[davecross]

Grant,
You have uncovered an odd fact about charts - apparently they are not treated as "regular" objects. I created a rectangle the same size as the chart, grouped them together and then tried to align, and only the rectangle moved! That's just strange!
Looks like manual effort is the only way to go....

[grant.smith]

Thanks Dave,

Seems like a big oversight from Adobe? Its kind of odd have not picked up on it though.

It would be nice to see some tutorials on the whole Graph tools aspect of Illustrator. I design a lot of corparate brochures and have never come up with a really effective work flow for charts and pie charts.

Grant

[kazbear]

I would at least set some guides to assist in the Alignment process.

Illustrator Graphs are much more powerful than they appear at first. You have the ability to change out the graphics without loosing the functionality. So if you want to use another graphics besides bars and such, your graph data is still editable.

Also, you can make the data dynamic, using the Variable Tool. That can make life easy!

I cant promise a tutorial, but I will answer some questions...

[grant.smith]

Are you saying you can link a graph to say a excel sheet and it will use the data?

I find the graph tool very cumbersome though, especially when it comes to styling.

[kazbear]

No, not that I have found anyway. With the Variable tool, you can make the graph data Dynamic. So you can enter values (Which you can import from excel or copy and paste) and save it as a Data Set. Enter more values and save that as a set, etc... You can then Switch between Data Sets.

This works well for business cards, calendars, etc... Anything where you have a basic template layout that you keep consistant and only need the vaules to change.

The variable data is saved as an xml file, so a programmer can add more functionality. For my use, I have someone edit the XML file when needed and I just import the file, choose the data set I need and I am done.

Can you explain more of the type of charts you are creating and how they are being used?

[grant.smith]

Well here is one of last years documents, there are nine of these reports, so you can imagine what a big job this is.

http://www.35millimetre.com/21.pdf

As you can see there are many pie charts and histograms which come to me in excel and just take the data and put them into a constant template.

[heathrowe]

I have been playing around with this, and as mentioned, the graph feature is underestimated, but certainly with it's limitations.

Can't align or transform with the Panels, hoepfully this will be brought in the next release.
But you can Right Click and choose/Transform/Scale - then go above the 100% range of the original drawn graph.

grant - as for excel documents, you can import them (but not link them)

h

[FreeTransform]

Look for a Graphs article and tutorial coming soon! Unfortunately, it will not show you how to align, transform or use Live Paint on a graph, because it can't be done (unless you ungroup the graph, thereby losing the ability to update the data or change the type). Cheers.