Changing which Columns are Displayed on a Graph

When a new file is opened, the Y-axis is set to display the data set labeled “Y”. You may want to customize the window by changing the columns that are displayed. To do so, perform the following steps:
 

1. Position the mouse over the Y-axis label and click. A truncated version of the Axes Options tab of the Graph Options window will appear.

Note: The Axes Options tab can also be accessed by double-clicking on a Graph object or choosing Graph Options from the Options Menu.

2. Select the checkboxes that correspond to the columns you want displayed. If you have multiple data sets, a checkbox for each column of each data set will be available.

3. Choose from the following scaling options: Autoscale, Autoscale from zero, or Manual.

Another way to select what is graphed is by clicking on a column heading from a table or Data Browser and dragging it to the appropriate axis of the graph. The data will be displayed.
 

You can choose which column is plotted along the X-axis by clicking on the axis label and using Axes Options tab.

Note: When you are tracing lines on a graph, each Y column is really a pair of columns: an X and a Y.  If you want to trace multiple Y columns on a single graph using different X columns, you can -- but the X columns must all have the same name and same units and come from different Data Sets.  For example, if you had the following Data Sets and columns:

Data Set 1
    X
    Y1
Data Set 2
    X
    Y2
Data Set 3
    X3
    Y3

You could trace Y1 and Y2 on a graph with X as the X axis column.  Y1 would use the X column in Data Set 1 while Y2 used the X column in Data Set 2.  You would not be able to graph Y3.

You can always graph any column against an X column which is unique.  In the example above, if you chose X3 to be the X axis for your graph, you could trace any of the Y columns (since X3 is unique).