Graphing software: any recommendations?

[Blue Velvet]

I'm looking for a decent package that runs natively in OSX that can handle spot colours, can import Excel worksheets or pages, export to EPS and do a nice job of it.

It would be nice if it had style-sheets as well as other forms of templating.

In short — the ideal piece of graphing software that can handle whatever numbers you can throw at it and yet output press-quality files.

I'm completely fed-up with Illustrator's graphing tools — they're beyond crap. By the time you've tweaked the bar-graphs to look how you want you may as well have drawn them by hand.

Edit: I should add that I've used DeltaGraph on the PC about 3 years ago and it was so-so with a fiddly interface. May check the latest version as it has a demo.

 

[gekko513]

iWork '06?

I don't know if they can import from Excel, but they do graphing and I believe they can export to PDF.

I'm not sure about this. Can anyone confirm it?

 

[jsw]

Have you seen any graphs on any sites that look somewhat like what you're trying for? It might help to see an example of the type(s) of graph(s) you're trying to produce.

 

[Josh]

Mathematica will do any kind of graph under the sun.

It does eleventy billion things besides graphing though, and depending on your uses and budget, you might want to look into it.

Worst case scenario, you get the graph you want, and a whole bunch of math-related features you will never use.

On the other hand, you may find it fun and end up a designer turned mathematician

 

[Blue Velvet]

Thanks guys.

Don't think iWork will cut it for technical reasons — can't imagine it being able to handle spot colours, let alone CMYK. And Mathematica isn't quite right either... I'll download the new DeltaGraph demo tonight and revisit it.

 

[CanadaRAM]

I usually build in Deltagraph, export, and finish in Illustrator.
That said, Deltagraph on OS9 had major league stability problems.

Have you looked at Chartsmith?

 

[Blue Velvet]

I usually build in Deltagraph, export, and finish in Illustrator.
That said, Deltagraph on OS9 had major league stability problems.

Sometime in the next 2-3 months, as well as about 100 tables, I've also got to do about 80 of the bloody things in black + a spot for an academic publication.

Maybe it's time to investigate Illustrator's actions. Or find a new job.

Chartsmith

Thanks, I'll look into that. And Aabel too which I see someone quoted on the VersionTracker page.

 

[Fukui]

Chartsmith?
It exports to EPS, don't know how good that is though...

 

[mwpeters8182]

I use R or MATLAB do do most of my data graphing. R's free, but there's a learning curve, and you'd have to dump the excel info into text format first, most likely.

 

[fluidinclusion]

Tecplot is high quality

Try this software for high quality graphing on OS X:

http://www.tecplot.com/

 

[balamw]

KaliedaGraph? http://www.synergy.com/

They also have a free trial.

B

 

[iris_failsafe]

What about illustrator?

It seems to be able to do everything that you need

 

[Blue Velvet]

What about illustrator?

It seems to be able to do everything that you need

Illustrator's graphing tools are pathetically underpowered and extremely inflexible, as I mentioned in my first post.

 

[jtt]

You could probably build it in any program that suits your needs then save it out as a Post Script file and distill it.

 

[mrichmon]

I'm completely fed-up with Illustrator's graphing tools — they're beyond crap. By the time you've tweaked the bar-graphs to look how you want you may as well have drawn them by hand.

When I got fed up with graphing in Illustrator I ended up using a combination of excel and illustrator. I used excel to enter the data and produce the graph then cut and paste the graph into illustrator. It is pasted as vector objects which can then be tweaked and re-styled as necessary.

Alternatively you could try gnuplot to produce eps files and then replace the colours in illustrator.

 

[balamw]

Alternatively you could try gnuplot to produce eps files and then replace the colours in illustrator.

IMHO. Excel's not bad for business type charts like pie charts and bar charts, but it is lousy for scientific/engineering charting. The limitations it puts on log plots and the like are extremely constraining.

I also thought about recommending gnuplot as I have used it for my dissertation and many publications. It is very powerful and customizable, but it doesn't have the most friendly UI and is not generally considered publication quality (despite the fact that I and others use it that way). You could definitely help it out with Illustrator...

B