Chart Area
The entire region used for the chart, axes, headings and so on. If the chart style is ‘boxed’ (as in the diagram) a thick line is drawn around it. This is what should be set as the height and width of the chart if it is rendered as an image at the default resolution of 72dpi.

Plotting Region
The rectangle formed by the X and Y axes, stretching between the first and last tick marks in each direction. By default, GraPL will leave this clear of all elements except plotted data, but you can choose to place the key here, or to add text notes after the plot is complete.

Margins
The area outside the plotting region. By default GraPL leaves space for the Y­axis on the left (with labels of up to 4 digits), the X­axis and key at the foot, and a 1-line heading at the top. If you require longer labels or a deeper heading, you will probably need to adjust these settings with the ‘Margins’ property. This gives the (top,bottom,left,right) margins as shown, or you can set the margins individually with ‘MarginTop’ and so on. All values are in points.

Chart Heading
The main title for the chart. By default this is written centred at the top of the chart, but you can place it as required by setting the heading style.

Axis Captions
You can set captions for any of the X, Y and Z axes. You can also choose to have (short) Y-axis captions written horizontally at the end of the axis rather than up the side.

Axis Labels
These are written at each tick mark. By default, GraPL uses numeric labels, but you can scale, format, or over-ride these as required. You can also choose to have the X-axis labels written midway between tick marks, which is often suitable for weekly or monthly data.

Grid Lines
these are lightly-drawn horizontals and verticals which extend from the major tickmarks across the plotting region.

Baseline
This determines how barcharts and surface charts are shaded. You can leave the X-axis at the bottom and set a baseline part-way up the Y-axis to give the effect of bars which ‘hang’ from a norm, or to shade above and below a standard setting.

Key or Legend
This is written (by default) across the foot of the chart, and shows a small sample of the colour / marker / fill style for each line or bar, with a short section of explanatory text beside it. You can place the key anywhere within the chart area or margins, and multiple charts may share a single key.

Value Tags
Scatter plots, piecharts and barcharts may be annotated with data values. For scatter plots these are simple numeric values written beside each data point, for barcharts you can choose to write them on top of each bar or just inside the bar, and for piecharts they will be written around the edge of the pie using radial ‘spider’ tags from each segment.

Chart Notes
You can add free text (optionally boxed) anywhere within the chart area. Notes are positioned using the (x,y) coordinates of the last chart plotted, except for piecharts where the plotting region has a notional coordinate system of 0 – 100 in both directions.

Datum Lines
These are normally added after the plot is complete to mark important ‘cut off’ lines, such as +/- 2 standard deviations on a control chart.

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