Bug 62925 - FORMATTING: enhancement: please add "chart styles" to the styles of Calc
Summary: FORMATTING: enhancement: please add "chart styles" to the styles of Calc
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Chart (show other bugs)
Version: Inherited From OOo
Hardware: Other All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
QA Contact:
URL: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/C...
Whiteboard: BSA VOTE
Keywords:
: 46173 62540 74408 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2013-03-30 05:46 UTC by bugquestcontri
Modified: 2014-07-22 19:02 UTC (History)
9 users (show)

See Also:
i915 platform:
i915 features:


Attachments
proposed new chart style : StairsToTotal (17.49 KB, image/png)
2013-08-10 06:07 UTC, bugquestcontri
Details

Description bugquestcontri 2013-03-30 05:46:54 UTC
Problem description: 
When a new chart needs to be created it always starts up with the default and hast to tune to the personal or company format needs. This takes always a lot of time, thus a loss on productivity.

Solution;
Add "Chart-Styles" to Calc, which allow creating and saving formats for several chart styles. In one chart-style all possible features of a chart should be customizable.


I can be contacted for discussions and tests
Operating System: Windows XP
Version: 3.6.5.2 release
Comment 1 A (Andy) 2013-03-30 07:39:08 UTC
I agree, this would be a very good idea.  More standard chart types would also be very good like bar of pie chart, etc.
Comment 2 bugquestcontri 2013-03-30 09:33:35 UTC
@A - Thanks for looking into this matter. Feel free to add also more standard charts. This makes customization already a bit easier. However, with the styles, LibO would beat MSO with a great functionality. I just keep fingers crossed for dev manpower.
Comment 3 Gerry 2013-04-27 22:21:17 UTC
Bug 62540 describes something very similar. IMHO it is not exactly an exact duplicate, but it might make sense to join the two bug entries. 

I put Francisco of that bug entry to this one here in CC.


There is another bug which is quite similar to this one, but also has a slight different twist: Bug 39097
Comment 4 Francisco 2013-04-27 23:43:42 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> Bug 62540 describes something very similar. IMHO it is not exactly an exact
> duplicate, but it might make sense to join the two bug entries. 
> 
> I put Francisco of that bug entry to this one here in CC.
> 
> 
> There is another bug which is quite similar to this one, but also has a
> slight different twist: Bug 39097

Hi Gerry, thanks for let me join this talk.

Well, in some way, it _is_ a duplicate of what I wanted to report in first place: it is a really slow task to edit format charts in Calc. What could we do? 
· Add chart styles
· Add other customization options for the defaults presets of charts (not only colors)

Then I realized that the problem was a pretty bigger, since not even textboxes drawn inside charts are editable through styles. Then I stated that charts need some improvement in general, though the implementation of styles is a real step fordward in this goal.
Comment 5 Francisco 2013-06-08 18:43:18 UTC
I was vivisecting an ODS file, trying to see how does LibO handle styles for charts, since it's supposed that using ODF, you're using styles even if don't want.
Charts content, as for any object are stored inside dirs "Object #", where there are 3 files: meta.xml, content.xml and styles.xml.

Interestingly, the file styles.xml doesn't store any style, but all styles defined for charts are stored in content.xml around "<office:automatic-styles>"

It seems to be that this feature request will be more difficult to solve
Comment 6 bugquestcontri 2013-06-09 12:48:41 UTC
@Francisco - Thanks for looking into this matter and for your comments. Now I - and I assume that there are many others waiting for this enhancement - can only wait to see if there is a great volunteer who will tackle the topic.

This feature would - to the best of my knowledge - put Impress on the same and maybe even a bit better level than PowerPoint. I remember that there are User styles but this was not very satisfactory; at least for me.
Comment 7 bugquestcontri 2013-08-10 06:07:00 UTC
Created attachment 83915 [details]
proposed new chart style : StairsToTotal

As there are also new chart styles considered I would like to propose the style "Stairs to Total". A style I am using very often instead of stacked column style to emphasis the gain for each step separately.
This is also very often to be seen in chart created by consulting companies.

Current creation requires additional data preparation and a lot of formating work; thus very time consuming.
Comment 8 bugquestcontri 2013-08-10 06:11:28 UTC
Additional to comment 7

I feel that this is a great feature above MS Excel.

In Excel 2003 this style was not available; I missed it a lot. Could a newer Excel version please be checked by someone who also has access to MS Excel >=2007?
Comment 9 Robert Pogson 2013-09-09 12:07:11 UTC
I add my support for this request. I blog and do technical work using a lot of charts. For blogging, I create the charts and then embed them in my website as a fixed number of pixels. On a high-resolution screen, the image is often barely readable using the defaults for titles, axes-labels, legends and data-labels, so I have to adjust fonts repeatedly. It takes more time to manually format the chart than it does to gather the data for the spreadsheet and upload the image to the server. It is a major hit and I have to remember the font-sizes for several categories of items and font-faces, or articles with multiple charts look amateurish. It could be just one click to avoid a lot of work and errors.

The newly added ability to export as SVG helps in quality but I still have to work with font-size on one end and pixels on the other...

This is also an accessibility issue in that old eyes like mine need the larger fonts. It's not only about convenience/productivity.

The whole idea of using XML in the file-format is to be able to separate style from content. Not using that philosophy for charts and hard-coding these in the software is something that should be fixed. Now that SVG is well supported, this would make LibreOffice nearly perfect for what I do. If we cannot do this with styling, please let us save and insert from templates. Saving the chart styling in a whole-document template doesn't work because the data-ranges then have to be edited and there might be a dozen of them.
Comment 10 Francisco 2013-09-10 00:02:46 UTC
Could it be a good idea if anybody creates an entry in "Vote vor enhancement" page?
Comment 11 ign_christian 2013-10-03 03:51:35 UTC
If I understand clearly, this report is the same / duplicate to Bug 62540 (which is reported earlier). Shouldn't we merge these to only 1 report?
Comment 12 chtfn 2013-11-01 07:46:48 UTC
*** Bug 62540 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 13 chtfn 2013-11-01 07:57:04 UTC
As Francisco suggested, I added this bug to the Vote for Enhancement page on the wiki: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Vote_for_Enhancement#Bug_62925_-_FORMATTING:_enhancement:_please_add_.22chart_styles.22_to_the_styles_of_Calc

Feel free to add your vote.
Comment 14 Cor Nouws 2013-11-01 08:32:16 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
> When a new chart needs to be created it always starts up with the default
> and hast to tune to the personal or company format needs. 

You can copyk&paste an existing one often and then drag a new data-range to it.

Nevertheless: a very useful enhancement request!

Cheers,
Cor
Comment 15 Francisco 2013-11-23 14:24:22 UTC
(In reply to comment #14)
> (In reply to comment #0)
> > When a new chart needs to be created it always starts up with the default
> > and hast to tune to the personal or company format needs. 
> 
> You can copyk&paste an existing one often and then drag a new data-range to
> it.
> 
> Nevertheless: a very useful enhancement request!
> 
> Cheers,
> Cor

That's not so easy: you must have already in the same spreadsheet a chart formatted in the way you want. You cannot copy a formatted chart from another file (though maybe you can insert that one sheet).

But yes, that's is what we do now ;-)
Comment 16 bugquestcontri 2013-11-24 12:26:25 UTC
As I needed create a larger number of charts in a company format, I looked here to see how things are developing. 

Thanks to all who worked and work on this enhancement. I can offer testing if needed.
Comment 17 Cor Nouws 2014-02-03 11:26:37 UTC
*** Bug 74408 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 18 bugquestcontri 2014-02-06 14:15:31 UTC
I would like to vote for this and other enhancement request I found here
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Vote_for_Enhancement#fdo.2336815_-_Advanced_printing_capabilities_of_comments

However, also reading the explanation "Please add a short comment (1 line) starting with # at the end of the list you want to support and sign with -- ~~~~ . Good arguments have more influence than numerous votes." I cannot figure what I need to do. 

Can I please have some voting-for-dummies advice?
Comment 19 Francisco 2014-02-06 14:51:06 UTC
(In reply to comment #18)
> I would like to vote for this and other enhancement request I found here
> https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Vote_for_Enhancement#fdo.2336815_-
> _Advanced_printing_capabilities_of_comments
> 
> However, also reading the explanation "Please add a short comment (1 line)
> starting with # at the end of the list you want to support and sign with --
> ~~~~ . Good arguments have more influence than numerous votes." I cannot
> figure what I need to do. 
> 
> Can I please have some voting-for-dummies advice?

# Be sincere

# Be concise but clear, not everyone could be experiencing your situation, nor have the time to read a testament

# Don't be selfish, remember, you may need a feature, while other people would prefer another.

# Don't use adjectives to exaggerate your request

# Etc.?
Comment 20 Gerry 2014-03-24 17:00:33 UTC
I created a page for this bug "Chart Styles" on the Documentfoundation wiki in order to collect ideas and updates with regards to this bug:
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Chart_styles

Furthermore, there is some important movement: German and Swiss cities and institutions fund dvelopment on this feature and they just opened a tender:
http://www.osb-alliance.de/working-groups/projekte/wichtige-funktionalitaeten-bei-loaoo/ (in German language)
Comment 21 chtfn 2014-03-25 01:49:51 UTC
There is also a pdf in English that details the enhancements: http://www.osb-alliance.de/fileadmin/Working_Groups/OfficeInteroperability/Project2/SpecificationMajorFeatureImprovements_final.pdf
Comment 22 bugquestcontri 2014-06-20 13:12:16 UTC
This is excellent news! 
I hope we get this feature soon. 
I willl keep fingers crossed that budget will be provided.
Comment 23 Jean-Baptiste Faure 2014-07-22 19:02:27 UTC
*** Bug 46173 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***


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