9.4 Graph Formats and Themes

Graph-Format-Theme

The graph template allows you to customize a graph and save your customizations to a file. When the graph template is saved, your customizations become the default formatting options used to create new graphs from that particular graph template. Graph Formats and Themes act differently in that selected styles and formats can be applied after the graph is created. Graph Formats and Themes, in effect, override graph template settings. This allows you to quickly customize the appearance of one or more graph windows as, for instance, you might want to do to when preparing documents for publishing in multiple formats. You can use Formats and Themes to copy properties and apply them to one or more selected objects, to a graph window, to all graph windows in a folder, or to all graph windows in a project file.

A Format is a group of graph or graph object properties that have been copied to the Windows Clipboard. A Theme is simply a group of graph or graph object properties -- perhaps the same set of properties -- that have been saved to a file. Once you save a set of graph or graph object properties as a Theme file (.OTH), you can re-apply or modify them as needed.

At a basic level, implementing the Format or Theme is simple:

1. You customize a graph or a graph object (text label, arrow, etc.).
2. You select the customized graph or graph object and (a) you copy its Format or (b) you save its properties as a Theme.
3. You select a target graph or graph object and (a) you paste the Format or (b) you load the Theme to apply its properties to the selected graph or graph object.

When copying and pasting a Format, shortcut menu commands and dialog box controls allow you to selectively apply the properties of the source graph or graph object. To learn more, see Copying and Pasting Formats in the Origin Help file.

If you are using Origin 2019 or later, check out OriginLab's free Theme Preview App. The App includes Themes for axes, box charts, color schemes, contour plots, and more, that can be applied to your graph. Themes can be applied singly or in combination to build an entirely new Theme. What's more -- as the App name implies -- you can preview any and all changes before applying them to your graph.