Saving Graphs to a File—429

Saving Graphs to a File

When working with graph objects, EViews also allows you to create a metafile or PostScript file.

You may, at any time, right mouse click or click on Proc, then select Save graph to disk...

to bring up the dialog.

In the top portion of the dialog, you should provide the name of the file you wish to create. EViews will automatically append an extension of the proper type to the name (here, “.EPS” since we are saving an Encapsulated PostScript file).

Next, select the File type, and any options associated with the output type. You may select Metafile - placeable, Enhanced Metafile, or Encapsulated PostScript. You

may elect to save the graph in color or not, and, for PostScript files, include a bounding box or choose the graph orientation.

Lastly, you should select the Output graph size. The size may be specified in inches, centimeters, printer points, or picas. If the Lock aspect ratio checkbox is selected, changes to the Width or the Height will generate corresponding changes in the other dimension. If you wish to scale your graph in a non-proportionate fashion, you should uncheck this box.

The default graph file saving options may be set in the global options dialog by selecting Options/Graphics Defaults.... (see “Graphics Defaults” on page 941).

Graph Commands

For those of you who wish to automate these procedures, for example to produce a regular report, EViews allows you to perform extensive graph customization from the command line or using programs. See Chapter 5, “Working with Graphs”, on page 59 and “Graph” (p. 161) in the Command and Programming Reference for additional details.

Creating Tables

In EViews, a table may be an object view or a table object. Table views are object views that contain formatted text or numbers that are aligned in columns and rows. Examples of

430—Chapter 14. Graphs, Tables, and Text Objects

table views are the spreadsheet views of a series and the estimation output views of an equation. There are a limited set of customizations that are available for table views.

A table object is an independent object that contains formatted text or numbers. Table objects may be created directly, by issuing a table declaration, or indirectly, by freezing a table view. As with graph objects, table objects are “not live” in the sense that they do not reflect the current contents of the underlying object, but are based instead upon the contents of the object at the time the object was frozen. Table objects also allow for a full set of customizations.

While many of the features described here apply to both table views and table objects, the remaining discussion focuses on customization of table objects. Working with table views is described elsewhere (see, for example “Changing the Spreadsheet Display” on page 88).

Table Basics

The most basic operations in a table involve selecting cells and editing cell values.

Selecting Cells

Selecting one or more cells is one of the most common tasks in working with table views and table objects. For the most part, you will find that cell selection works as it does everywhere else in Windows, but a brief review may prove useful.

The simplest selection is for a single cell. Simply click on the cell you wish to select. If the table is not in edit mode, the cell will be shaded. If the table is in edit mode, the cell will be surrounded by a black border, and the contents of the cell will be displayed in the table edit window.

For the selection of multiple cells, EViews uses the concept of an anchor cell to determine a selection region. The anchor cell is used to mark the start of the selection

region and is used to indicate how a selection will change as you move the mouse or use keystrokes.

When edit mode is off, the anchor cell is marked as the cell with the black square in one of the four corners of the cell. When edit mode is on, the anchor cell is marked with a black border around the cell. You may toggle between edit mode on and edit mode off by clicking on the Edit +/- button on the object toolbar, or alternately, by right mouse clicking and selecting Edit +/-.

The easiest way to highlight a region is to (left) click in a cell to set an anchor point, then, while holding down the mouse but-

432—Chapter 14. Graphs, Tables, and Text Objects

Editing Cell Values

To enter or change the data in a table, you must first display the table edit window by enabling edit mode, and selecting a cell to be modified. Here, we see a table that is in edit mode, with the contents of the A1 cell displayed in the edit window just below the toolbar.

To modify the contents of the cell, simply type in the edit window. Alternately, you may double click in the cell to edit the contents. EViews will then allow you to edit the cell in place.

You may provide either alphanumeric or numeric input. If your text may be interpreted as a number, EViews will interpret the input and store the value as

a number. Since the table value is stored as a number it may later be formatted using the numeric formatting tools. You may, for example, change the display of the number to scientific notation, or you may display numbers with 4 digits of precision (see “Content Formatting” on page 434).

Note that you may enter numeric expressions and have EViews evaluate them prior to placing them in the table. To evaluate a numeric expression into a cell, type “=” before the expression. For example, entering the text “=4*5” will result in a cell value of “20”. Entering an invalid numeric expression will set the cell to a numeric NA.

This latter example raises a minor issue associated with entering missing values into a table. If the text “NA” is entered into a table cell, the cell value will be set to the string “NA”, not to the missing value NA. To enter a numeric missing value, you should enter the string “=NA” into the cell. We point out that the choice between entering the “NA” string or the NA value into a cell has consequences for auto-justification, or when saving values to a file.

Basic Table Customization

You may perform basic customization of a table object by attaching a title, by adding or hiding the grid lines, or by resizing the rows or columns.