2.76 FAQ-827 How to mask data points in a box chart?

Last Update: 12/9/2020

Origin 2020b and later

To mask data points in a box chart, you must have some box variation that shows individual points -- either in the form of outliers or as a distribution of points.

FAQ827 mask points tool.png
  1. Select either the Mask Points on Active Plot Button Mask On Active Plot.png or Mask Points on All Plots Button Mask On All Plots.png button on the Tools toolbar, then hover on your graph.
  2. Use the spacebar, as needed, to toggle the selection mode.
  3. Drag your mouse to capture the point(s) that you want to mask. The masked points are removed from the box plot(s) and box statistics are recalculated. Additionally, the associated data are masked and marked with the current mask color in the original worksheet (raw data arrangement) or output worksheet (indexed data arrangement).
  4. To display the masked points you can toggle the Disable Masking button Button Disable Or Enables Masking.png on the Mask toolbar; or to remove the mask entirely, display masked points with Disable Masking, then choose Unmask Points on Active Plot Button Unmask On Active Plot.png or Unmask Points on All Plots Button Unmask On All Plots.png (Tools toolbar) and drag to capture masked points. Alternately, you can highlight the masked point(s) in the worksheet and click the Unmask Range Button Unmask Range.png button.

Origin 2020 and earlier

Previous versions did not support direct application of a data mask but you can use the following workaround:

  1. Having a box chart with data points, select Data Reader tool Button Data Reader.png in the Tools toolbar.
  2. Point and click the data point you want to mask, and then Data Info window showing the X and Y coordinates of the selected data point will appear.
  3. On Data Info window, right-click and choose Go To Worksheet in the flyout menu.
  4. The row of the selected point in the worksheet is highlighted.
  5. Reselect only the targeted data cell of the dataset, right-click the cell, and choose Mask: Apply in the flyout menu.

Keywords:mask, box chart, data point

Minimum Origin Version Required: Origin 2015 SR0