Creating Templates

Templates are created by saving the attributes from an existing chart. Choose the Chart->Save_As_Template menu item to bring up the template save panel as shown below. By default, this save panel displays the Library/Chartsmith folder found in your Home folder. In the lower section of the save panel, you can enter a description of a template to help you identify the template and what it might used for.

In the template components section of the save panel, select the attribute groups you wish to save in the template. Any of the seven attribute groups may be included by selecting them, or excluded by deselecting them. Below is a description of each attribute group or template component.

Title Attributes
This component stores all the atttributes of the chart title and subtitle. These attributes include the title visibility, font, position, text and background colors, alignment and shadows. Title attributes do not include the actual text used in a title, nor do they include more than one font or text color. If you want to include title text, multiple fonts or title colors in a template, see All Text Too below.

All Text Too
This component stores the exact text of each of the titles. There are five standard title sets: chart title, chart subtitle, series titles, legend title, and axis titles. When this component is included, titles with multiple text and color runs will be preserved.

Annotations
This component stores all annotations that have been added to the chart. This includes text, line, circle, box and balloon annotations. Be aware that applying a template multiple times to the same chart will put multiple copies of the annotations in that chart.

Background
This component stores all attributes of the chart background and border. This includes the background fill type, the background color(s), the gradient attributes (if gradient is used), border attributes, and background image attributes (if a background image was used).

Legend
This component stores all attributes of a chart legend. These attributes include legend visibility, border attributes, fill attributes, size, position, and title attributes. When applying a template that includes the legend component, the chart legend is sized according to the template if possible. If the contents of the chart legend are too large to fit inside the dimensions specified in the template, then the chart legend is sized to fit the contents.

Series
This component includes all attributes of all series in the chart. Many of the series attributes are specific to the chart series type. For instance, templates storing Bar series attributes will store the series image if one has been set, but this attribute is not applicable to a line series. On the other hand, several of the chart series attributes are general attributes applicable to all series types. These include the series name, label attributes, and line width and color.

Grid
This component stores all attributes of the chart grid, if one exists. A wide range of attributes are stored in the grid component including all of the X major and minor line attributes, the Y major and minor line attributes, 3D attributes, grid visibility, size and position, label fonts, and axis label attributes.

Note, the drawing order of the various components of a chart is not stored to a template. When you apply a template to a chart, the drawing order of the components of that chart will remain as it was before you applied your template. For example, if you place an annotation behind the grid of your chart, this position will not be maintained when the template is applied.