Grapher's Graph Wizard allows frequent and infrequent Grapher users to quickly and easily create a professional-looking graph.

1. To enter the Graph Wizard, click Plot from Wizard in the New section of the Welcome to Grapher dialog, or click Home | New Graph | Wizard. If the current view is not a plot document window, one will be created.
2. The first dialog that appears is the Graph Wizard – Select Data dialog. This is where the input file or type is selected for the desired plot.
   • If the desired output plot is not a function plot, in the Select data source section, select the file location from the dropdown list, and then choose the file from the file list below. The file location options are recent files, the Project folder directory set in the Options dialog, the Samples directory shipped with Grapher, or files open in the current instance of Grapher. Alternatively, to select a directory not in the list, click the Browse for a data file option, select the directory in the Open dialog, and click Open. Once a file is selected, a preview of that file is shown in the Data Preview section.
     
   • If the desired output is a function plot, in the Select File section, ignore the folder and file lists and instead check the box next to Skip data (for function plot).
     
3. Click Next to proceed to the second dialog: Graph Wizard – Select Plot Type. This is where the plot type and data columns to plot are chosen. This dialog lists only the plot types that can be created from the selected data file or type from the previous dialog. So if a grid file was selected in the previous dialog, only grid-based plots are listed, and if the Skip data option was checked in the previous dialog, only function plots are listed. 
   1. Limit the Plot types list. By default, all plot types are shown in the Plot types list, but this list can be refined by selecting a specific category from the Category list,
      
      or by typing into the Search box. The search finds all plots in all categories, rather than just in the selected category. Previous searches can be found by clicking on the arrow in the Search box.
      
      In the Plot types list, click on the star for a particular plot type to mark that type as a favorite. A yellow star indicates the plot is a favorite, whereas a gray star indicates the plot is not a favorite. To display the favorite plots, select Favorite from the Category list.
      
      Favorite plots are remembered, so the next time the Graph Wizard is opened, the favorite plots will not have changed.
   2. Select the plot type. Click on a plot or checkbox in the Plot types list to select that plot to create from the file selected in the first dialog. Only one plot type can be selected, but multiple plots of that type can be created in a single graph. Selecting a plot type shows a description of that plot in the lower left corner of the dialog, and shows the minimum data columns required for that plot type in the Data Columns section. Click the Help button in the Data Columns section to see a table of all plot types and their required columns
      
   3. Determine the data columns to use for the plot(s). Additional columns can be added by clicking the Add button, and those additional columns can be removed by clicking the Remove button. All columns can be plotted by checking the box next to Plot all data. The column associated with any of the variables can be selected from the Column list for that variable. If your data is formatted into rows rather than columns, you can check the Data in rows box, and then the Variable columns will update to display Row data rather than Column data.
   4. Tell Grapher how the data columns are presented in the data file, in the Data Layout section. A Data Layout of X, Y1, Y2, Y3 corresponds to one shared variable across multiples of the other variable. When this option is selected, choose which variable will be added from the Variable to add dropdown list. For example, if X is selected, there will be one Y variable and multiple X variables. If this is changed to Y, the list updates to show one X variable and multiple Y variables.
      
      A Data Layout of X1, Y1, X2, Y2 corresponds to data with multiple x and multiple y variables, so the variable list updates to show an even number of variables corresponding to these x,y data column pairs.
      
   5. Click the Back button at any time to get back to the previous dialog, if you need to view the data preview again. Settings in the Graph Wizard – Select Plot Type dialog will be preserved as long as nothing changes in the Graph Wizard – Select Data dialog.
4. Click Next to open the final dialog: Graph Wizard – Properties.
   • The Graph Options section contains many objects that can be added to the graph to create a professional, finalized output. Changing these options changes the Plot Preview on the left. The objects that can be added are a legend, a graph title, axes titles, a top axis, a right axis, grid lines, and in some cases, a summation plot. 
     
   • In addition to adding objects to the graph, the graph coloring can be determined with the Color palette list. Select an existing color palette from the list, or click the ellipses (…) button to open the Color Gradient dialog, where a custom color palette can be defined. Graph Options are remembered, so the next time the Graph Wizard is opened, the same options will be set by default.
5. Click Finish to create the graph as shown in the Plot Preview.

• See the Graph Wizard training video for more information.

Updated February 20, 2023