[Solved+Issue] Export Calc Chart as an Image

[Hagar Delest]

Is it possible to create an image file from a chart in calc?
I want to put a copy of my chart onto my website.
Thanks in advance.
Ross

[JohnV]

You can using Draw. Select the chart so it has green handles, copy & paste into Draw then while still selected do File > Export.

[famo]

i have a question there too:
if I choose to export as .svg the whole text is missing and its even worse, if you have a chart with color gradient in the background.
is this only here or is this generally a bug in OOo?

[kriswarner]

The easiest way I've found to do this is to save the calc file as a webpage, open that webpage up, and then right click on the image, save as. Very little hassle, though it would be nice if Calc had a feature to save the chart as an image file from within Calc.

[Cambirder]

You can paste the image into Writer or Draw as a GDI Metafile, and from there paste it into an image editor to save in what ever format you prefer.

[mahela007]

you can also export the spread sheet as a PDf file and then use the snapshot tool in adobe PDF. the advantage here is that you will get antialiased graphs

[LexLuthor]

all that sounds fairly complicated.
In excel you can simply press the shift button and then select edit->copy picture to save a chart as a picture.

your solutions take a lot of time, especially if you notice an error in a chart and have to do all that export stuff again.

[acknak]

It has been requested, and is currently targeted for OOo "3.x" which probably means sometime in the next year or so.
Issue 21588: export chart as postscript, image (PNG, BMP...) or pdf
You can register there and add your vote (up to two) or comment.

[TomNJ]

A quick way to do it in 3.0 is to select "Preview in web browser" and then right click the image and save it.

You can also just select the chart and copy/paste it into Photoshop. I think you need to change the Print options to "reduce bitmaps" and set the resolution to the highest you can? The lines aren't anti-aliased, you lose gradients and the text kerning is off sometimes.

I use the export to PDF then take a snapshot because the charts look like crap otherwise.

In my opinion, any work to make it easier to export charts is pointless until the exported charts look better. Until then go the cumbersome export to PDF route.

[murphyb]

You can using Draw. Select the chart so it has green handles, copy & paste into Draw then while still selected do File > Export.

Thanks for your answer, JohnV. It is a little roundabout but it worked for me.

I found that when you export, if you click the "Selection" box and you have the chart selected it will output only the chart as the image file which was exactly what I was trying to do. However, I couldn't find any mention of checking this box when I was looking for help so I thought I would add it here.

[JohnM]

Thanks for the post on how to export a Calc Chart as an image.

I'm using NeoOffice 3 (Mac OSX 10.5) and adapted your method.

I previewed my image in my web browser (Firefox); then Cntrl-click on the chart and selected "copy image" which copies the image to the clipboard. Then I opened Preview.app and select File, New from Clipboard, or Cmd-N which copies the image from the clipboard into a new preview document. from there I do "save as" to save the image in one of the available formats.

Just a little round about but it works!

[Dave]

Thanks for the post on how to export a Calc Chart as an image.

I'm using NeoOffice 3 (Mac OSX 10.5) and adapted your method.

I'm new to the iMac. In Windows, I'd have copied the image then pasted into an image editor like Photofiltre, or The Gimp. Does Mac have a decent image editor other than GIMP? Also, why NeoOffice? How does their iWorks compare? I'm finding the new spreadsheet, Numbers, a bit of a learning curve, and missing a few items I've been used to.

David.

[frankiejol]

The best workaround I found so far is this:
http://phanvinhthinh.blogspot.com/2010/ ... -draw.html

It basically advises to change the page size before exporting as pdf.

[mriosv]

Right-click the chart, copy.
Then Paste-special have two options:
-Star object Descriptor (XML)
-GDI metafile

Right-click the GDI metafile, copy.
Then Paste-special have four options:
-Draw format.
-SVXB (StarView Bitmap/Animation)
-GDI metafile.
-Bitmap.