TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
I sometimes write financial reports or similar material which require
hi-lo graphs --not the kind you usually see in the financial section of
the newspaper, but the kind that look like a series of floating
rectangles, with the top of each rectangle representing your "high" data
point, and the bottom your "low", and usually with a series of
horizontal lines within the rectangle representing the median and other
relevant data points you wish to display within the context of the
"high" and "low".
In general, what kind of graphing software do people use when they want
to create fancy graphs of that nature? I've tried Excel, Quatro Pro, MS
Graph, CorelChart, and Illustrator, and none of them produce the result
I want very easily (they all require manually adding elements to the
graph, which then of course don't change when you change your data).
Anybody out there use Harvard Graphics or Lotus 123, or is there some
specialist product I've never even heard of? If you think you know what
I'm talking about (sorry for the lack of clarity, but I don't know the
terminology to describe what I want), then please get back to me with
any software tips you may have. I'd like a tool that converts data to
graph without much invervention on my part.
