Below are frequently asked questions about SlideWrite Plus. Unless otherwise noted, these questions and answers refer to the currently shipping version of the product (SlideWrite Plus Version 7 for Windows).

You should also consult the SlideWrite Help file for "How To" examples and complete information about each of SlideWrite's options.

This FAQ is organized as follows:

If your question isn't answered below, please send it to us at support@SlideWrite.com. We'll answer your question and add it to our list if appropriate. If you believe you have discovered a problem (defect, bug) that is not mentioned below, please send us a Problem Report.

SlideWrite Plus creates high-quality charts, graphs and slides for technical presentations, publications, reports and more. It is packed with technical features like:

SlideWrite works with Windows 2000, XP and Vista.

SlideWrite Plus for Windows is fully compatible with other major Windows applications. You can launch SlideWrite from any OLE server program like Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. Just use the application's Insert Object command to insert a SlideWrite chart into the current document. SlideWrite Plus version 7 can read data from Microsoft Excel worksheets. Use the File; Import Data; EXCEL file option to choose the data source columns and rows in the Excel file, and the target columns in the SlideWrite worksheet. Or, you can use the Windows clipboard to cut, copy and paste data, text and graphics to and from other Windows applications.

Yes. If there's a Windows driver for your device, we can print to it!

SlideWrite Plus is better because it's designed specifically for scientists and technical users. Features like Linear and nonlinear curve fitting, equation plotting, axes breaks, time series plots, combining multiple graphs on a page and 3-dimensional graphing for surface and contour graphs just aren't available in most mainstream graphics programs.

Please see our Product Order Form for complete pricing information and product descriptions.

Yes. The SlideWrite Plus Network Pack upgrades SlideWrite to allow additional users. Please call us for pricing and information.

Yes. Download our free trial size version and put it to the test.

It is best to install SlideWrite in a new directory to avoid confusion about old vs. new files. After you've installed your new version, and everything is working correctly, you may want to remove the old version from your system to conserve disk space.

Be sure to save any charts that you created with the old version to another directory before removing the old SlideWrite directory.

Also, if you have saved your charts, figures or images in a directory that is different from the SlideWrite directory, you need to update the path names for the Charts,Figures and Images in File, Program Options dialog.

For SlideWrite Version 6 users or earlier, you will get the above system registry failure message when you set the Windows to Users Mode. This is because SlideWrite is attempting to establish an OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) link to other Windows applications like Word or Excel on program startup and this can be done only when the Windows is set in Administrator or Power User mode. To solve the problem, you should set the Windows to Adminstrator or Power User mode. Please note that your program will work properly with the Registry warning message if you need to run SlideWrite in User Mode.

For SlideWrite Version 7 users, you can set your Windows to Users Mode after you install SlideWrite in Administrator Mode. The OLE link will be done during the program installation and an option (Update System Registry on Startup) is added in File; Program Options to allow you to turn off the system registry update on SlideWrite startup.

This can happen when the SLIDE.SET file is not closed properly from last use of SlideWrite.

To solve the problem, you must remove the SLIDE.SET file from the SlideWrite directory, and then re-install the SLIDE.SET file from the SlideWrite CD.

First, create each chart individually. Then, begin a new chart using Drawing as the chart Type and choose the Format that will best accommodate your charts. Add each of the charts as a figure in Draw. Hints on combining charts are included in theDraw section of the SlideWrite Help file.

For an X axis, first set the X Data Type to number. Then set the axis Minimum and Maximum values accordingly. For example: Minimum = 100 Maximum=0 will give you an axis that goes from 100 to 0.

Although 0 is undefined on a log scale you can simulate a 0 point by doing the following:

Set the minimum to a value less than 1. (For example, 0.1)

Set the Axis format to 8.0 (8 total paces with 0 digits after the decimal point).

This will yield labels: 0  1  10  100  1000 etc.

The trick is to put each value in a different column to get the individual pattern and color assignments. You must also place the data in different rows so the Stack Data option can be used to get evenly-spaced bars:

X	A	B	C	D	...
L1	5
L2		6
L3			8
L4				7

AND Then, enable the Stack Data option in the Chart; Series and Legends dialog before you view the data. In SWW6 you can reference the Help file topic How to Create a Bar Graph with Individually Colored Bars.

Enter the error bar values as positive (pointing up) and negative (pointing down) values and use "Up" as the Error Bar Format.

Enter up your data like this:

X	A	B	C	D
X data	Mean	X error	Mean	Y error

The X Data must all be numeric values and you must set the X Data Type to Number in the Chart; X Axis Scaling and Breaks menu.

In the Curves, Equations and Error Bars dialog select the following options:

X	A	B	C	D
Error Bar	yes	left right	yes	up down

Simply type the text, highlight it, then click the Superscript or Subscript button.

Within X data labels only you must use the following codes:
Begin superscript {170}+
Return to normal{170}=
Begin subscript {170}-

The SlideWrite Plus character set includes many Greek, Math and International characters not found on the keyboard. For graph titles, legends and Word Chart and Draw text click on the Special Character button. Then, select the character from the Font Map dialog and click OK.

Within X data labels only any character with a code in the range 30-255 may be typed in as "{nnn}" where nnn is a 2- or 3-digit decimal code for the character.

For example, type {225} for Beta.

Press F1 help in SlideWrite and for a table of Greek, Math and International characters and their 3-digit codes.

Use File, Print data to print out the data in the Graph Data Form.

To increase the number of columns on an existing graph:

Click on File; New and click on the Preserve Current Graph option. (This option is supported in SWW4 and later.)

Click on the Graph Series x Points option to choose the desired number of columns and click on OK.

A new graph will be created with the increased number of columns but the original data and graph options are preserved.

Create the graph as a scatter graph and add the curve fit (using either the Math; Curve Fitter option or the Curves, Equations and Error Bars; Curve Fit option). Then double click on the graph (for direct editing) and change the Marker Type to None.

Use the Math Curve Fitter with a user-defined equation whose constant term is 0.

For example, to fit a straight line through the origin enter the user-defined equation as:
  a0*x
and a starting value for a0 of 1.

These are samples plotted for the legend. Set the legend position to None in the Series and Legends dialog.

In the X Axis Scaling and Breaks dialog, set the X Data Type to number.

Set the Axis Format (in Y Axis Scaling and Breaks) to an appropriate format (i.e. 10.2).

If you have enabled the error bars in the Curves, Equations and Error Bars dialog and they still don't display, check the following:

Set Legend to Left in the Chart; Series and Legends dialog (or Top for a horizontally orientated legend).
Once the chart is displayed, select the legend and drag it to a new position.
Select the chart frame to resize the chart to get rid of the empty space on the left margin.

You can create a graph template using the options that all the graphs will have in common. Just create the first graph and select File; Save Template. Enter the name for your template file and click OK to save it. Each time you begin a new graph in the set you can enter the new data, then click File; Apply Template and choose the template file you saved. The template options will be applied to the current data set. See the Help file for specifics on what options can be saved in the template.

You can create multiple graphs in SlideWrite Version 4 and Version 5 but you cannot import data and options from previously created single graphs. Although one can place multiple graphs on a page with the Draw method, it is not easy to maintain consistent size for titles, chart frames and to align the chart frames. Also, you cannot edit any of the chart elements (data, titles, graph options..etc) unless you edit the original charts.

The Import Graph from File command in Version 6 and 7 allows you to import data from single graphs so you can place multiple graphs on a page very quickly and easily! With this feature, the data and the graph options are imported from file to create the selected graph. Because "real" data are used to create multiple graphs on a page, you can edit the data, align the graphs, maintain consistent size for titles and labels and make changes to the graph options.

1. Click on File; New… When the New Chart pop-up appears, select Graph for Type, Portrait for Format and Multiple for Graph Layout. Enter 2 for Rows and 1 for Columns to get two graphs in a "stack" arrangement.
2. Click on Chart; Import Graph from File… When the Import Graph from SlideWrite File pop-up appears, click on 1 in the preview window and this will open the Open Chart pop-up to allow you to select the file for Graph1 (top graph). Repeat the same process but click on 2 in the preview window to select the file for Graph2 (bottom graph).
   
   
3. SlideWrite will display the imported graphs as two graphs one on top of each other. In this tutorial, we assume you have 2 error bar graphs that look like the sample that follows.
   
   
4. Optional. In this example we have 2 charts that have a common main title and X axes labels. This chart is a good candidate for a multi-panel chart. To get a multi-panel chart format, click on Chart:Layout for Multiple Graphs…, when the Layout for Multiple Graphs pop-up appears, check all the options in Rows and click OK. SlideWrite will adjust the position and size of the chart frame for the top and bottom graph to close the gap between them. The X Axis Labels and X Axis Tics for the top graph are suppressed - SlideWrite does this by adding an N entry in the Bottom X Axis Scaling;Axis Format field and turning off the Bottom X Axis in Left Y Axis Scaling;Tic Placement field.
   

1. The Layout for Multiple Graphs command does not remove the titles of the chart. To do this, select the graph and right click to open the Titles pop-up and then remove the titles that you do not want. To change the position of the title, simply click and drag it to a new position.
   When you close the gap between 2 rows of graphs, you might need to change the scaling values of the Y axis by setting the Start Major Div and End Major Div fields in Chart;Y Axis Scaling and Breaks so that top label of the bottom graph does not overlap with the bottom label of the top graph. In the example here, the Minimum field for the Y Axis for the top and bottom graphs is 90, the Maximum field is 150, and the Division field is set to 6.
   
   
   In order to avoid overlapping labels, you need to set the Start Major Div field for the top graph to 100, the End Major Div field to 150 and the Division field to 5. This will offset the first labeled tic for the top Y Axis as shown in the chart here.
2. The Import Draw Objects option in the Chart;Import Graph from File command allows you to import the Draw objects (annotations, lines, boxes, custom legend, figures..) from the single graph. You might have to reposition and/or resize these objects since the size and position of the chart frame for the imported graph will be different from the single graph. Also some objects might "disappear" when the chart format for the multiple graph is different from the single graph (i.e., chart format for the multiple graph is Portrait and the format for single graph is Landscape). When this happens click on Draw;Select;All and then you can drag all the objects to an area on the chart that you can see before repositioning them.
3. Click on Chart; Data Row Ranges to find out where the Import Graph from File command places the imported data. The Data Row Ranges command will allow you to view the X Row Range assignments for all the graphs at a glance. You can also see a topic on data organization when you click on Help in Chart; Import Graph from File, and this will give you a good idea on how SlideWrite organizes the imported data.
4. By checking the Import Background and Palette option in the Chart;Import Graph from File command you are asking SlideWrite to use the background and palette information that is saved in the single graph when the graph is imported . When this option is not checked, SlideWrite will ignore the background and palette information in the single graph and use the settings that are setup in the multi-graph.
5. Use the Chart;Font Settings option to make global changes to the fonts, colors and text style options on your chart. This is especially useful when you have built up a page with multiple graphs from existing single graphs using the Import Graph from File option. You can set consistent Font, Color and Effects options to be used for all the text on all your graphs. This includes the titles, axis labels, annotated equations and any draw text. You can choose to apply only those attributes you desire by clicking on the Font, Color and Effects in the Apply Settings option.

1. Click on the Line tool in the Draw toolbox.
2. Move the mouse to the line's starting position, then press Enter.
3. Use the arrow keys to move Left, Right, Up or Down.
4. Press Enter at the end of the line.
5. You can use the Shift key plus the arrow keys to move in finer steps, and zoom in (press Ctrl+PgUp) to get more precise positioning.

Changing the Windows printer Setup options can solve many printing problems, particularly those involving True Type fonts. If you experience problems with printing True Type text, enable the "Print True Type as Graphics" option for your printer.

Some printing issues can be resolved by updating your printer driver. Using a printer driver designed for Windows 3.x on a system with Windows 95 or Windows NT installed can cause a variety of problems. Contact your printer manufacturer to obtain the latest driver - usually it can be downloaded from their web site.

Older versions of the DeskJet driver that were designed for use with Windows 3.x cannot handle rotated TrueType fonts.

Contact HP for the latest driver. (Version 3.30 of the HP PCL5 Color Printer Driver (HPPCL5C.DRV) prints rotated TrueType text correctly.)

SlideWrite charts are graphics-intensive, and can take a lot of graphics memory on your printer. Most HP Laser printers can understand two different printer languages - PCL and HPGL. PCL is a raster format, and is the more "compact" of the two languages. Check the Windows Printer Setup, and be sure that you have are using PCL for the graphics ("Use Raster Graphics" in Win95), not HPGL.

The NQ fonts are drawn as polygons, unlike the TrueType fonts. Some older drivers cannot process polygons with "holes" for example, the letters o, p, q, g, etc. You can either switch to a TrueType font (e.g. SlideWrite Sans or SlideWrite Roman) for the text, or update your printer driver. Note that in SWW6 you can use the Chart; Font Settings command to make global changes to the fonts used on the chart.

If you have a film recorder connected to your computer you can send SlideWrite charts directly to the recorder (using the recorder's printer driver). Then, you only need to send the film out to be developed into slides. (Advanced Graphics Software sells a variety of Polaroid film recorders that can be used to make slides with SlideWrite Plus and other leading Windows software packages. If you make a lot of slides, a film recorder can quickly pay for itself!)

If you have an in-house imaging services department, check to see if they can process SlideWrite .TC files. If not, contact us. We will provide them with a free copy of SlideWrite (to be used for imaging purposes only).

If you are using SlideWrite Plus for Windows version 3 or later, you can change the format of your chart using the following steps.

For a GRAPH:

For a WORD CHART:

Note: You might get a warning message asking you to try a smaller text size after you attempt the paste. In this case, you need to open the original word chart, highlight the text and change it to a smaller size before you do the Edit, Copy.

For a DRAWING:

If objects "fall off" the page, you can click on Draw; Select; All and re-size the bounding box for the collection so that they all fit on the page.

Contact Advanced Graphics Software for free sample slides that display a variety of colors recommended by Polaroid for optimum clarity and brilliance on slides. You'll also receive an optimized SlideWrite palette file on disk.

If your service can process PowerPoint (PPT) files, use the SlideWrite Copy Chart option to create a .WMF on the clipboard. Then paste this file into Powerpoint, and save it as a PPT file.

If your service can process PostScript files (usually true for Mac systems) use the instructions for creating PostScript files that are included in the SlideWrite Help file. Be aware that some PostScript drivers do not have an option for 35mm format. The aspect ratio may not be correct for slides, so you may see "open" space on your slides.