CHARTSMITH

Quick Start Tutorial #1

In this tutorial, you will be introduced to the Chartsmith application and its user interface, you will create your first chart and then export that chart to the file system. It is recommended that you progress on to Tutorial #2 to gain full comfort with the application.

Getting Started...........................................................................................................

The Basic Elements...........................................................................................................

When Chartsmith first launches, two different windows will appear. These windows are:


By simply launching Chartsmith, a new document has been created with one chart in it. The Chart Window has two primary components: the Chart View and the Navigator. The Navigator holds thumbnails of all of the charts in the document, which, for the initial document, is just one chart. At this point you have no data in the chart, so the chart only has the fundamental, generic elements within it, like a title and subtitle, a grid, and a legend.

In this single chart that is in your document, you have one series.



The series is represented in the chart by some graphical form, like pies or bars, and is also represented in the Data View by a single spreadsheet-like series column. This series column will hold the data for the series, and has the icon of its series type at its top.

Working in the Data View Window..............................................................................



The Inspector Panel...........................................................................................................

At this point you have a cursory introduction to the Chart Window and the Data View Window. Let's introduce another window, the Inspector Panel. The Inspector Panel is used to control the attributes of every element of the chart. This panel is activated by clicking the Tools -> Inspector Panel menu item, or by simply clicking the shortcut button on the Chart Window.



Adding new charts to a document................................................................................

Chartsmith charts are designated as being of one of a collection of chart types. When a chart is added to a document, its chart type must be specified. For many of the chart types, there are many variations to that chart type that can be made once the chart is created. For example, a Bar chart can be converted into a horizontal Bar chart, a stacked Bar chart or a horizontal stacked Bar chart, or any of the previous in 3D format. So a short list of chart types ultimately provides a long list of chart formats.

Exporting and Saving...................................................................................................



That concludes Tutorial #1. You should now have some comfort with creating charts, editing their data and saving. Plus you should have some understanding of the three primary windows in Chartsmith: the Chart Window, the Data View Window and the Inspector Panel. Proceed to Tutorial #2 for a more thorough coverage of the functionality of Chartsmith.



Copyright 2002-2003 by Blacksmith. All Rights Reserved. Blacksmith is a division of Foundry, Inc.