Create And Format Chart Using Free Spire.Xls

What is Spire.Xls?

The Spire.XLS Free Edition is a versatile Excel library designed for software developers to do a wide range of Excel processing tasks on the .NET Platform that doesn't need to install Microsoft Excel or Office.

Getting Started

Start Visual Studio, create a new console application, and add the following Spire.Xls DLLS.

• Spire.Common.dll
• Spire.License.dll
• Spire.Pdf.dll
• Spire.XLS.dll

Now let's simulate some data and save them into a DataTable.

private static DataTable CreateTable()
{
    // Create a new DataTable
    DataTable dt = new DataTable();
    // Add columns to the DataTable (Month and Count)
    dt.Columns.Add("Month", typeof(string));
    dt.Columns.Add("Count", typeof(int));
    // Add rows to the DataTable with sample data
    dt.Rows.Add("January", 10);
    dt.Rows.Add("February", 20);
    dt.Rows.Add("March", 30);
    dt.Rows.Add("April", 40);
    dt.Rows.Add("May", 50);
    // Return the populated DataTable
    return dt;
}

Next is to insert the DataTable into Excel and create the chart with the above data using Spire.Xls, which supports the creation of various charts, such as columns, pie, lines, and so on. This article uses a column chart as an example.

public static void CreateChart()
{
    Workbook workbook = new Workbook();
    workbook.Worksheets.Clear();
    var sheet = workbook.Worksheets.Add("Sheet1");
    DataTable dt = CreateTable();
    sheet.InsertDataTable(dt, false, 1, 1);
    Chart chart = sheet.Charts.Add();
    chart.ChartType = ExcelChartType.ColumnClustered;
    chart.DataRange = sheet.AllocatedRange;
    chart.SeriesDataFromRange = false;
    chart.Height = 220;
    chart.Width = 450;
    chart.Left = 0;
    chart.Top = 100;
    workbook.SaveToFile("CreateChart.xlsx", ExcelVersion.Version2007);
}

Press F5 and see the output.

The process is very simple, and when we create the chart, we can set the layout of the chart, such as chart title, chart area, legend, x-axis, and so on. These might be not important for us, so here I have skipped them, but then you'll love them.

Next, I will guide you through the labeling of the data points and coloring of the data points, which are useful ways to see precise data about the values of the underlying data alongside the graph itself.

The next segment of code is used to label and color the data points. The process is simple enough.

Color[] arrColors = new Color[]
{
    Color.Red,
    Color.Green,
    Color.GreenYellow,
    Color.Pink,
    Color.Purple
};
for (int i = 0; i < chart.Series.Count; i++)
{
    chart.Series[i].DataPoints.DefaultDataPoint.DataLabels.HasValue = true;
    chart.Series[i].DataPoints.DefaultDataPoint.DataLabels.Color = Color.Blue;
    for (int j = 0; j < chart.Series[i].PointNumber; j++)
    {
        chart.Series[0].DataPoints[j].DataFormat.Fill.FillType = ShapeFillType.SolidColor;
        chart.Series[0].DataPoints[j].DataFormat.Fill.ForeColor = arrColors[j];
    }
}

Effect screenshot

I hope you enjoyed this article. I'll write some features of Spire.Xls in separate articles soon.