Charts & Graphs in AI
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- XL_Smith
I've been having the worst time maintaining any stylistic control over charts generated in Illustrator CS4. (A David Blatner tutorial states that they haven't upgraded that particular plug-in software in something like 4 years, as an explanation.) Can anybody recommend a plug-in for Ai or another mac compatible (no PC, please) vectored chart & graph generator software that allows you stylistic control?
- ckentish0
use numbers on mac and import in
- Greedo0
uh, it IS illustrator, you can edit it any way you damn please...
- XL_Smith0
I understand it's AI. It doesn't allow for much CONTROL. No way to tell each chart to have the same bar width, for example, when each chart has a different number of bars. Or constrain it's width within a page size. You have any suggestions?
- Greedo0
it really sounds like you shouldn't be using illustrator at all, perhaps excel is more suitable to your purposes.
- johnjacobwasle0
buy book information graphics a comprehensive illustrated reference
- XL_Smith0
Thanks for the help. Anyone else got any suggestions?
- XL_Smith0
Thanks for the help. Anybody else have any suggestions?
- XL_Smith0
@ johnjacobwasle
Is this book a basic over-view of information design, like Edward Tufte, or it is specific to charts & graphs design within AI?
- rodzilla0
http://vector.tutsplus.com/tutor…
I know its for CS3 and I'm not sure about the whole masterpiece thing, but it might help?
- Greedo0
XL, illustrator gives you total control over your charts, it's just that you have to do it manually after you've created the initial chart.
Ungroup the thing and get to work.
If you can't be bothered to do this, or have too many of them to do, then, again, you really shouldn't be using illustrator for charts/graphs.
- XL_Smith0
I'm aware of everything you're talking about. I was hoping there might be more, or a new plug-in. It's 2009...for AI to still not have made a chart style function, for example, just seems like...missing the boat. You got object styles in ID, GREP codes, etc...AI is severely lacking, here.
- XL_Smith0
@ rodzilla, thanks for the link. Not quite what I'm looking for, but anybody's time to answer this query is appreciated...
- Greedo0
you're right, the graph function is in sore need of an update, but i honestly don't know of any plugin that will do it for you, and i do this for a living...
but i'm not the final word on anything, let me know if you find anything, cause it sure would help me out, too....
- XL_Smith0
^ Likewise, if you hear/find anything. I have been searching for another brand of software comparable to AI for several weeks now. (I've made, thus far, somewhere around 80 of these things. I see charts & graphs in my dreams, suspended over the heads of people, popping out of the sides of buildings, etc.) Most everything I look at just doesn't give me as clean a look as I can get in AI, (or is for PC) which is important, for the final product. It strikes me as counter-intuitive, to do it this way, but I haven't found anything better.
- akrokdesign0
"No way to tell each chart to have the same bar width"
window > transform (shows you the size)
- ETM0
There's a plugin for InDesign. Never used it.
http://chartbot.com/
- zaq0
- XL_Smith0
^ Just tried it. Alas, it has the same problem as AI. My main issue w/ AI is, after making a bar chart w/ 4 bars, going to make one w/ 5 bars within the same space squeezes the extra bar of data into the that space, instead of expanding the chart & keeping our bars the same size—nice & uniform for 200+ charts, right? Even worse when you two sets of data for each bar: slim city. Had high hopes chartbot would do it, being a plug-in for Indesign...maybe playing w/ object styles...jesus...back to the grind.