Help - Element formats
Element formats can be used to define the appearance of a single document element in contrast to the document formats that effect all elements in the document. To change element formats you can select Element formats-option from the format menu (or from the context menu, the tool bar or by using the keyboard shortcut F6) which displays the element formats dialog.
There are several different element formats which can be applied to different types of document elements. You can access them by the tabs of the element formats dialog.
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This article describes this feature for the latest version of TreeGraph 2. For older versions the following articles are available: Element formats (until 2.0.24) |
Tabs of the element formats dialog
If you open the element formats dialog only these tabs are active which contain formats that can be applied to elements of the current selection. (E.g. the Scale bar formats tab is only active if a Scale bar is contained in the selection.)
| Tab name | Description |
|---|---|
| Line formats (including corner radius) | Formats like color or width that describe the appearance of a line element (branch, node, legend, scale bar). Additionally you change the corner radius here which has different functions for nodes and legends.. |
| Font formats | This tab allows to adjust the font of text elements (e.g. text-height, bold, underline) like nodes, text labels, legends or the scale bar. The text color can be changed in the Font color tab (see below). |
| Font color | The color of any text element like nodes, text labels, legends or the scale bar |
| Decimal format | Elements that display floating point values can be formatted here. You can e.g. specify the decimal place count or enforce the use of scientific notation. |
| Leaf margin | Here you can specify the distances to elements neighbouring terminal nodes) |
| Branch formats | Formats that are specific for a branch (e.g. distances to its neighbouring elements) |
| Label formats | Formats that define the position of a label relative to its branch as well as its margin |
| Icon/pie chart label formats | Formats that define the layout of icon labels and pie chart labels (Note: Pie chart labels were not available before version 2.0.43 and this tab was extended in version 2.13.0.) |
| Legend formats | Formats that define the position and the appearance of a legend |
| Scale bar formats | Scale bar specific formats that define the position, the size and the scaling |
Applying formats to several elements
You should note that only the properties you have edited are applied to the selected document elements. If you have selected multiple elements the values of the first selected element are displayed in the dialog which does not necessarily mean that the other selected elements currently have this value too.
Example: Let's say you have selected three branches which have the line widths 0.1 mm, 0.4 mm and 0.5 mm and want all of them to have the with 0.1 mm. The dialog displays only the width of the first branch (0.1 mm). If you leave this value unchanged and click OK all branches will keep their individual line widths. To specify 0.1 mm as the new width for all branches you have to edit the value e.g. by retyping 0.1 in the text field (so that TreeGraph 2 can register that this value has changed).
Although it might look easier to always apply all format-values displayed in the dialog to all selected elements this would cause problems in other cases, e.g. if you had selected the three branches from the previous example to specify a new line color while leaving their individual line widths unchanged. In that case the line width information would be lost if the element formats dialog would always apply all contained formats (in that case the line with of 0.1 mm).
See also
- Document formats
- Selecting elements
- List of document elements
- Tutorial:Adding support values (Demonstrates how to format groups of document elements efficiently.)
