Once you have created a chart you can move it or resize it like other OpenOffice objects.

For example, to stretch the chart horizontally, just click the chart then click on one of the green handles and drag it to the desired shape.

You can easily change the chart from one type to another by right-clicking then selecting the chart type option. It’s easy to change the chart from bar chart to a line chart. Just click on the line icon. Then click OK.

When you right-click on a chart you will notice several options that will let you edit individual parts of a chart. For example, you can change the title, legend, an axis or the chart grid through this menu.

Let’s select the chart wall option and change the wall fill color. The chart wall screen has tabs that allow you to customize the lines, area, and transparency settings of the chart wall.

Select the area tab, this tab lets you change the background color, and fill patterns or you can select bitmap and choose a picture to use as background. We’ll keep things simple and just change the fill setting from color to none.

Many of the elements in a chart can be edited by double-clicking on them. For example, if we wanted the make the line on our chart thicker we could double click on the line and edit it.

The data series screen is the interface for manipulating the line. As you can see you can change the line style, color, specify an icon as a marker. We want to change the line width so we’ll click the up arrow next to the line width box then close the window by clicking the OK button.

As you’ve noticed, there are several things you can do to change the appearance of your chart. They all work like the example we have seen here. Feel free to open up the sample and experiment a bit. With a little exploring you should be able to make your chart look just like you want.