Ken Lassesen
Microsoft Developer Network Technology Group
August 2, 1995
Click here for a diagram of the Microsoft Graph Object in various graphics formats.
This article consists primarily of a graphic map of Microsoft® Graph Object, showing its properties, methods, and child objects. The map provides a quick reference to this object.
The Microsoft® Graph Object (Graph) gives developers the ability to chart, graph, or plot information easily without developing code. Graph is a charting application that you use within Microsoft application and development software, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Access, Microsoft PowerPoint®, Microsoft Visual C++™, and Microsoft Visual FoxPro™.
A map is a good learning aid and a quick reference when developing an application. After producing a map, I found that it was easy to work with the object: I just post the appropriate map on my wall for quick reference, which is a lot faster than clicking objects in a Help file one by one to discover their properties and methods.
Because Figure 1 is unreadable online, I have included it in the two most common graphics formats—encapsulated PostScript™ (.EPS) and Windows® metafiles (.WMF)—as well as a copy of my original Shapeware® Visio™ version 3.0 file (.VSD). The first two formats can be printed across multiple pages using any of the commercial graphics applications—such as Adobe™ PageMaker™, Corel® Draw, or Microsoft Publisher—or using Microsoft Excel. The original Visio file is included for those who have a copy of Visio and wish to modify the diagram easily.
Figure 1. The Microsoft Graph 5.0 object map
The Graph object represents the graph. As the top-level object, it contains all other objects in the hierarchy of the Microsoft Graph objects. The objects and collections in Figure 1 are defined in Table 1.
Table 1. Object and Collection Definitions
| Object or Collection | Definition |
| Application object | This object contains application-wide settings and options. |
| Chart object | This object contains one graph and all of the graph-specific objects. |
| Axes collection | This collection contains the Axis objects. |
| Axis object | This object is one of the axes on a chart. |
| TickLabelObject object | This object is the text associated with tick marks on a chart axis. |
| Gridlines object | This object may be the major gridlines or minor gridlines on a chart. |
| AxisTitle object | This object is an axis title on a chart. |
| Legend object | This object is the legend of a chart. |
| LegendEntries collection | This collection contains the LegendEntry objects. |
| LegendEntry object | This object consists of the text and data marker labels contained within a charting legend. |
| LegendKey object | This object is the pattern formatting for the legend marker and its associated series or trend line. |
| ChartArea object | This object is a chart area on a chart. |
| PlotArea object | This object is the plot area of a chart. |
| ChartGroups collection | This collection contains the ChartGroup objects. |
| ChartGroup object | This object is a chart group on a chart. |
| DownBars object | This object is the down bar on a chart. |
| DropLines object | This object consists of the drop lines on a chart. |
| HiLoLines object | This object consists of the high-low lines on a chart. |
| UpBars object | This object is the up bar on a chart. |
| SeriesLine object | This object consists of the series lines on a bar or column chart. |
| Series collection | This collection is a collection of Series objects. |
| Series object | This object is a series on a chart. |
| DataLabels collection | This collection contains the DataLabel objects for the points on a series. |
| DataLabel object | This object is a data label on a chart series or a data label on a single point of a chart series. |
| Points collection | This collection contains the Point objects. |
| Points object | This object is a single point in a series. |
| TrendLines collection | This collection contains the Trendline objects. |
| TrendLine object | This object is a trend line on a chart. |
| ErrorBars object | This object consists of the error bars on a chart. |
| Walls object | This object consists of the walls of a 3-D chart. |
| Floor object | This object is the floor of a 3-D chart. |
| ChartTitle object | This object is the title of a chart. |
| Border object | This object is the border of a graphic object. |
| Font object | This object is a font description. The Font object contains all font attributes (font name, font size, color, and so on) as properties. |
| Interior object | This object is the interior of a graphic object. It describes the appearance (color, pattern) of the interior regions of an object. |
The Object Browser exposes some problems in the Graph object. The following items are disabled and should have been hidden in the object. These objects, methods, and properties are omitted from the chart:
The following applies only to stand-alone Graph objects and not to embedded Graph objects:
Microsoft Graph for Windows Help (MSGRAPH.HLP) can be found in the MSAPPS directory of your Windows' directory.