Graph axis titles and legends are special text labels that are generated from programmatically-linked data stored in the
worksheet column label rows
. Therefore, when planning to add special characters to axis titles or legends, it is easiest to add the characters to the label rows rather than trying to add them to these objects by direct edit.
Contents
1
Rich Text
2
Special Characters, Versions 2018 and Newer
3
Special Characters, Versions 2017 and Older
3.1
Setting up the graph to use worksheet header row data in legends and axis titles
To add complex formatting including superscripts and subscripts to worksheet cell text, you must have rich text enabled. By default, rich text is enabled only in
Units
and
User-defined Parameter
rows:
-
Right-click on a row or cell in the worksheet and choose
Set <
object
> Style: Rich Text
from the bottom of the shortcut menu.
-
Alternately, right-click in the gray area to the right of the worksheet columns and choose
Properties
. Click the
Format
tab and enable
Rich Text
, set
Apply To
and click
OK
.
Prior to Origin 2018, you had to enable rich text to enter special characters into column label row cells. This is no longer the case as the Origin worksheet now supports Unicode.
-
Double-click into the worksheet cell to enter edit mode.
-
Notes:
-
When inserting Unicode characters using the 4-character hex code and
ALT+X
, if the currently selected font does not include the character, you will have to switch fonts. For guidance on which fonts support which characters, you can check
this external website
.
-
If you want to plan to save the project to the older (pre-2018, pre-Unicode)
opj
format, you will need to enable rich text and use the
Symbol Map
dialog to insert special characters. For instructions, see the next section.
Versions of Origin prior to Origin 2018 do not support Unicode. To enter special characters into the worksheet, you must enable rich text. See
Rich Text
, above.
Versions 9.0 to 2017
:
Origin versions 9.0 and later support rich text for both the header (column label row) and data portions of the worksheet. You will need to enable rich text before adding special characters by Symbol Map, or when using the
Format
toolbar buttons (
Greek
,
Super
/
Subscript
, etc.) to format text.
Versions prior to 9.0
:
In earlier versions, you can format text in worksheet column labels using
Escape Sequences
.
The shortcoming here is that some formatting options -- for instance, subscript and superscript -- do not display properly in the worksheet (e.g. \+(o) will convert the symbol "o" to superscript in the graph legend or axis title but the worksheet cell is only capable of displaying the escape sequence notation).
Legend Text Customization:
Double-click on the graph window to open Plot Details. In the left panel select the graph icon, then on the
Legends/Titles
tab to the right, set the
Auto Legend Translation mode
to use your header text. If none of the available options works for you (note that there is an
@U: Long Name & Units
option), choose
Custom
and see
Legend Text Customization
.
Axis title customization:
There are two controls on the
Legend/Titles
tab that are useful for configuring axis titles to use worksheet information. For information on this and further axis title customization, see
Axis Dialog Box, Title Text
.
You can save your graph legend and axis title customizations with your graph template by choosing
File: Save Template As
. For more information, see
Origin Template Files
.
You can directly edit the text in axis titles and legend objects by double-clicking on the object. This puts you into in-place edit mode where you can overwrite the hidden LabTalk variables that link the title or legend text to worksheet metadata. This is a "quick and dirty" method not generally suited to saving of templates but if static text is acceptable, this will work. If you are trying to enter special characters to text labels in this way, see
FAQ-148 How Do I Insert Special Characters into Text Labels?
Keywords:
Unicode, ALT+X, angstrom, degree, math, German umlaut, diaeresis, acute, tilde, accent mark, macron, circumflex, Planck's Constant, Planck, Pi, superscript, subscript, worksheet headers
