Shapes in Charts

Sometimes you need to insert drawing objects like labels, text boxes, pictures and so on into a chart. Aspose.Cells can add the controls to a chart at runtime.

Adding Label Control to the Chart

Labels provide a means for giving information to users about a spreadsheet’s content. Aspose.Cells allows you to add and manipulate labels even into charts.

The Aspose.Cells.Drawing.ShapeCollection class provides a method named AddLabelInChart, used to add a label control to a chart. Below is a list of the parameters used for the method:

• top – the vertical offset of the label from the upper left corner in units of 1/4000 of the chart area.
• left – the vertical offset of the label from the upper left corner in units of 1/4000 of the chart area.
• height – the height of the label, in units of 1/4000 of the chart area.
• width – the width of label, in units of 1/4000 of the chart area.

The method returns Aspose.Cells.Drawing.Label object. The Label class represents a label in the chart. It has some important members:

• Text (property) – specifies a label’s caption string.
• Fill (property) – specifies the fill color attributes.

The following example shows how to add a label to the chart. The example uses a designer file (exp_piechart.xls) which has a chart in it. We use this file to insert a label into the chart. Below is the original code for adding a label to the chart. The following output is generated when executing the code.

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-cells/Aspose.Cells-for-.NET
// The path to the documents directory.
string dataDir = RunExamples.GetDataDir(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().DeclaringType);

// Open the existing file.
Workbook workbook = new Workbook(dataDir + "chart.xls");

// Get the designer chart in the second sheet.
Worksheet sheet = workbook.Worksheets[1];
Aspose.Cells.Charts.Chart chart = sheet.Charts[0];

// Add a new label to the chart.
Aspose.Cells.Drawing.Label label = chart.Shapes.AddLabelInChart(100, 100, 350, 900);

// Set the caption of the label.
label.Text = "A Label In Chart";

// Set the Placement Type, the way the
// Label is attached to the cells.
label.Placement = Aspose.Cells.Drawing.PlacementType.FreeFloating;

// Save the excel file.
workbook.Save(dataDir + "chart.out.xls");

Adding TextBox Control to the Chart

One way to highlight important information in a report is to use a text box. For example, enter text to highlight the company name or to indicate the geographic region with the highest sales. The Aspose.Cells.Drawing.ShapeCollection class provides a method named AddTextBoxInChart, which is used to add a text box control to a chart. Following is the parameters list used for the method:

• top – the vertical offset of the text box from the upper left corner in units of 1/4000 of the chart area.
• left – the vertical offset of text box from the upper left corner in units of 1/4000 of the chart area.
• height – the height of text box, in units of 1/4000 of the chart area.
• width – the width of the text box, in units of 1/4000 of the chart area.

The method returns Aspose.Cells.Drawing.TextBox object. The TextBox class represents a text box in the chart.

The following example shows how to add a text box to a chart. The example uses the previous designer file (exp_piechart.xls) which has a chart in it. We use this file to insert a text box into the chart to show the chart title. Below is the original code for adding text box to the chart.

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-cells/Aspose.Cells-for-.NET
// The path to the documents directory.
string dataDir = RunExamples.GetDataDir(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().DeclaringType);

// Open the existing file.
Workbook workbook = new Workbook(dataDir + "chart.xls");
 
// Get the designer chart in the second sheet.
Worksheet sheet = workbook.Worksheets[1];
Aspose.Cells.Charts.Chart chart = sheet.Charts[0];

// Add a new textbox to the chart.
Aspose.Cells.Drawing.TextBox textbox0 = chart.Shapes.AddTextBoxInChart(100, 1100, 350, 2550);

// Fill the text.
textbox0.Text = "Sales By Region";

// Get the textbox text frame.
// Aspose.Cells.Drawing.MsoTextFrame textframe0 = textbox0.TextFrame;

// Set the textbox to adjust it according to its contents.
// textframe0.AutoSize = true;

// Set the font color.
textbox0.Font.Color = Color.Maroon;

// Set the font to bold.
textbox0.Font.IsBold = true;

// Set the font size.
textbox0.Font.Size = 14;

// Set font attribute to italic.
textbox0.Font.IsItalic = true;

// Get the filformat of the textbox.
Aspose.Cells.Drawing.FillFormat fillformat = textbox0.Fill;

// Get the lineformat type of the textbox.
Aspose.Cells.Drawing.LineFormat lineformat = textbox0.Line;
     
// Set the line weight.
lineformat.Weight = 2;

// Set the dash style to solid.
lineformat.DashStyle = Aspose.Cells.Drawing.MsoLineDashStyle.Solid;

// Save the excel file.
workbook.Save(dataDir + "chart.out.xls");

Adding Picture to the Chart

Aspose.Cells allows you to insert images into a chart. For example, add a picture to emphasize or give more meaning to a chart or its contents, or insert a brand image file.

The Aspose.Cells.Drawing.ShapeCollection class provides a method named AddPictureInChart, which is used to add a picture object to the chart. Following is the parameters list used for the method:

• top – the vertical offset of the picture from the upper left corner in units of 1/4000 of the chart area.
• left – the vertical offset of the picture from the upper left corner in units of 1/4000 of the chart area.
• stream – a stream object which contains the image data.
• widthScale – the scale of image width, a percentage value.
• heightScale – the scale of image height, a percentage value.

The method returns an Aspose.Cells.Drawing.Picture object. The Picture class represents a picture object in the chart.

The following example shows how to add a picture to the chart. The example utilizes the previous designer file (exp_piechart.xls) which has a chart in it. We use this file to insert an image into the chart. Below is the original code for adding picture to the chart.

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-cells/Aspose.Cells-for-.NET
// The path to the documents directory.
string dataDir = RunExamples.GetDataDir(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().DeclaringType);

// Open the existing file.
Workbook workbook = new Workbook(dataDir + "chart.xls");

// Get an image file to the stream.
FileStream stream = new FileStream(dataDir + "logo.jpg", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read);

// Get the designer chart in the second sheet.
Worksheet sheet = workbook.Worksheets[0];
Aspose.Cells.Charts.Chart chart = sheet.Charts[0];

// Add a new picture to the chart.
Aspose.Cells.Drawing.Picture pic0 = chart.Shapes.AddPictureInChart(50, 50, stream, 40, 40);

// Get the lineformat type of the picture.
Aspose.Cells.Drawing.LineFormat lineformat = pic0.Line;          

// Set the dash style.
lineformat.DashStyle = Aspose.Cells.Drawing.MsoLineDashStyle.Solid;

// Set the line weight.
lineformat.Weight = 4;    

// Save the excel file.
workbook.Save(dataDir + "chart.out.xls");

Adding Checkbox in the Chart

Aspose.Cells allows you to insert checkboxes into a chart sheet by using MsoDrawingType enumeration. The following example demonstrates adding a checkbox to a chart sheet.

The following image shows the chart sheet with the checkbox in the output file.

The output file generated by the following code snippet is attached for your reference.

// For complete examples and data files, please go to https://github.com/aspose-cells/Aspose.Cells-for-.NET
// Instantiating a Workbook object
Workbook workbook = new Workbook();

// Adding a chart to the worksheet
int index = workbook.Worksheets.Add(SheetType.Chart);

Worksheet sheet = workbook.Worksheets[index];
sheet.Charts.AddFloatingChart(ChartType.Column, 0, 0, 1024, 960);
sheet.Charts[0].NSeries.Add("{1,2,3}", false);

// Add checkbox to the chart.
sheet.Charts[0].Shapes.AddShapeInChart(MsoDrawingType.CheckBox, PlacementType.Move, 400, 400, 1000, 600);
sheet.Charts[0].Shapes[0].Text = "CheckBox 1";

// Save the excel file.
workbook.Save(outputDir + "InsertCheckboxInChartSheet_out.xlsx");

Advance topics

• Add WordArt Watermark to Chart