How to use charts with MS word/powerpoint ?

[Arnaud]

Hello,

I'm currently wondering how to ad chart cut/paste functionnality between my java app (JFreeChart embedded) and MS word/powerpoint applications.

It seems that there is no particular trouble making that work with bitmap pasting - using the native windows clipboard formats.

However, I want the user to be able to make some resizing while keeping good image quality, therefore I want to use a vector format.

I began looking at two options :
1) SVG : The Batik framework works really great. The trouble is that if You try to copy svg in You clipboard, and paste it in MS Word, You only have the choice to get the XML text or a rasterized copy ! Have a go with Your SVG viewer, right-click, and choose the option Copy...

2) WMF : the wmf format sounds not perfect, not as open, not as efficient as SVG, but works well on windows platforms... I just began making some tests with the WMFWritter package (http://piet.jonas.com/WMFWriter/WMFWriter.html). Seems to work well, but I need some more tests.

Questions :
[Q1] Is there any of You that have the same needs (paste JFreeChart charts in MS apps as vector format) ?

[Q2] If Yes, what have You done so far, and are You happy with Your solution ? What are the advantages/drawbacks of Your solution ?

I plan to write a little "How to use JFreechart with MS Word/Powerpoint" ... all contributions are welcome !

Regards,
Arnaud

[David Gilbert]

Hi Arnaud,

I won't be much help, since I haven't run Windows for quite a while now - SuSE Linux does everything I need! But let me know when you get your HOWTO written, and I'll add a link (or host the file) on the JFreeChart home page so others can find it.

It is a shame that MS Word doesn't support cut-and-paste for SVG, as SVG is a very nice format.

Regards,

Dave Gilbert

[Arnaud]

Hello Dave,

You can count on me to provide the results... if there are some !

>It is a shame that MS Word doesn't support cut-and-paste for SVG, as SVG is >a very nice format.

Well, I'm not quite sure yet, but it also surely a shame if Adobe has not provided it's viewer with vector image cut/paste functionality ; as far as I know, when You use the copy svg option of the Adobe SVG Viewer and try to paste the result in Win32 apps, you only get Unicode or raster format !!

So, again, any testimonials/examples are warmly welcome !

Regards,
Arnaud

[Narasimha Narahari]

Hi,
I have this requirement of using JFreeChart in PowerPoint but i wasnt sure how to go about doing this. As of now i dont have a solution.

It would be great help if we could put this together and i am ready to work on this with you.

Thanks,
--Narasimha

[garth braithwaite]

In general for MS-office Apps (which should also work for PP):

0. Save the .svg file from the web browser by right clicking on it and then doing a save as... 1. Launch Excel etc. 2. Choose the Insert/Object menu selection. 3. Choose the Create from File tab. 4. Browse and choose the SVG file. 5. Press the [Insert] and then [OK] buttons. 6. Resize as desired. I made it huge and it never went blocky.

I also did it this way:
1. Launch Word
2. Choose the Insert/Object menu selection.
3. Choose the "SVG Document" from the Create New tab.
4. Right click on the object choose Properties.
5. Enter the filename and path in the SRC field e.g. C:\test.svg 6. Resize as desired.


But the easiest way was to select the svg file from the Windows explorer and drag 'n' drop into Word etc.

Hope that helps. Garth.