Stat-Xplore : Graph View

Click the Graph View tab to generate a graph based on your current table:

Graph view

If your table is currently set to use percentages, then the graph will also represent the values as percentages.

There are a number of ways you can interact with and edit the graph:

See More Information
Change the Graph Type
Choose to Graph by Row or Column
Select the Series for Pie Charts
Hide Values
Hide Totals, Sub-Totals and Axis Derivations
Edit the Axis Titles
Data too Big to be Visualised
Download the Graph

To maximise the amount of space available for viewing your graph, you can hide the Customise Graph panel. Click it again to re-open it.

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Move your mouse over the graph to see a tool tip containing more information about the values in the graph:

Tool tip containing information

Change the Graph Type

Select one of the other graph types from the list in the Customise Graph section. The graph will change automatically.

For example:

Bar Charts:

Bar chart example

Stacked Column Charts:

Stacked column chart example

Choose to Graph by Row or Column

By default, Stat-Xplore places the items from the table rows along one axis and shows the values from the table on the other axis. This sometimes causes the graph you've created to look unusual and not what you expected to see.

If you want to view the column headings on the axis instead, you can use the Graph by option to swap:

Graph toggle highlighted

For example, the following table shows the number of Universal Credit claimants in each month for the 12 months starting October 2015 with all months positioned in the column of the table:

Months in columns

This displays the following chart in Graph View by default:

Equivalent graph view

If you select Column from the Graph By option, then Stat-Xplore displays the column headings on the x axis, instead of the row headings, which gives a more sensible looking chart:

People on Universal Credit by Month

Select the Series for Pie Charts

Pie charts can only show a single row or column at a time. Use the Graph by option to choose whether you want to show a row or column from the table, and the Selected series drop-down to select which row or column.

For example, in this case the chart is showing the breakdown of Universal Credit claimants by gender and month for the latest year available. You can use the Selected series drop-down to change the gender shown in the chart:

Pie chart

Hide Values

The key at the bottom of the graph is interactive: you can click any of the items to temporarily hide them from the graph. This can be particularly useful if you have some outlying value that makes it hard to focus on what you are interested in.

For example:

In this graph, the number of Universal Credit claimants in the (M) Manchester Postcode area is so much greater than the others that it is hard to see the differences between the other Postcode areas:

Cluttered graph

You can click (M) Manchester in the key to temporarily hide it from the graph. The graph automatically updates, and the scale of the y axis automatically adjusts to make best use of the available screen space:

Simpler graph with Manchester hidden

Hide Totals, Sub-Totals and Axis Derivations

Select or clear the check boxes to hide or show totals, sub-totals and axis derivations in the graph:

Hide Total option selected

All these options are selected by default. The corresponding options will be greyed out if the table does not contain totals, sub-totals, or axis derivations.

Edit the Axis Titles

You can edit the axis titles. Simply click one of the axis titles and enter your new title (or clear the box to revert to the default title):

Edit box visible

Your edited titles will be displayed for as long as you remain in Graph View and will be included on PDF or PNG downloads. You can change the graph type and the graph will keep the same edited titles. However, the titles will not be saved if you switch to one of the other views (for example if you switch to Table View and then switch back to Graph View, the graph will revert to the default titles).

Data too Big to be Visualised

You will not be able to generate a graph if there are too many items in your table. If there are too many items, Stat-Xplore will display a message indicating that your data is too big to be visualised:

Message displayed

Go to Table View and make changes to your table to reduce its size. You might be able to reduce the table size by applying the zero suppression options.

Download the Graph

You cannot save your graph inside Stat-Xplore; it is only available for the current session. However, if you save the table that you used to create the graph you will be able to reopen the saved table and then access the graph again via Graph View.

If you want a copy of the graph (for example to use in a report or presentation) then you can download your graph:

Select the download format from the drop-down list. You can choose to download the graph as a PDF or in PNG (image) format:
Click Go.

If you have a very large number of items listed in the key at the bottom of the graph, then they will be paginated when the graph is displayed in Stat-Xplore. Only the first page of items will be displayed in the downloaded PNG or PDF.