Making graphs transparent in IBM SPSS Statistics

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Tech Tips - Making Graphs
Transparent in IBM SPSS Statistics

2. Copyright ©2020 Version 1. All rights reserved. SPSS Analytics Partner is part of Version 1
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Tech Tips Why make SPSS Graphs
transparent?
• By default SPSS charts have a grey
chart area with a white background
• If you are creating a power point
presentation that has a certain style
or theme and you want your graph to
fit into this style you can make the
whole chart transparent

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• Outer frame - Frame around all of
the elements
• Text box - The title in the previous
slide
• Data frame - Frame around the
axis titles, axis labels, and data
• Inner frame - The part of the chart
that displays the actual data
• Legend frame - Frame around the
legend
Tech Tips Graph/Chart Layouts

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• We will use the sample file “dietstudy.sav”
• Located in C:Program
FilesIBMSPSSStatistics*VersionSampl
esEnglish
*Version: Your SPSS Statistics Version, e.g. 20, 21,
22,…
• Firstly we will create a simple scatter plot
• Graphs -> Chart Builder -> ScatterDot ->
Simple Scatter
Tech Tips First create a chart

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• In the output viewer you can double
click on a graph and it will open the
chart editor
• This can also be done by right
clicking and selecting edit content –
in separate window
• In the chart editor we can edit the
graphs appearance
Tech Tips Viewing the Graph

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• To make the chart area transparent
you need to select the data frame
• There is always a yellow frame around
something when it has been selected
• To make the chart area transparent
(instead of grey) select the fill colour
button
Tech Tips Making the chart area
transparent

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Tech Tips Making the chart area
transparent
• Select the transparent colour and
the background will be set to
transparent

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Tech Tips Graph with transparent chart
area

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Tech Tips Making the whole graph
transparent
• To make the graph transparent you
first need to select the outer frame
• There is always a yellow frame
around something when it has been
selected
• To make the entire chart
transparent select fill colour button

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Tech Tips Transparent Chart

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Tech Tips How to paste the transparent
chart into a presentation
• To paste the transparent graph into
powerpoint ensure you copy it from
SPSS as a Metafile
• When pasting into powerpoint
select “Paste Special”

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Tech Tips Transparent Graph
• This is a transparent graph

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Tech Tips