Paste editable graph in Powerpoint

Hi, I think one killer-feature that I would wish for future Igor versions and that seems to be blocking users from switching from Origin to Igor, is the possibility to paste a Igor graph into another (Windows) program, e.g. Powerpoint, and be able to edit it later by double-clicking the graph. In my group THAT would really help to convince people to use Igor.

Alexander
Thanks for the suggestion.

Windows OLE (object linking and embedding) is very complex and difficult to implement so I don't expect to see it in the near future.
If we get a lot of requests for it, that would move it up on our priority list but it would also move other priorities down.

Sorry for the bad news.
hrodstein wrote:
Windows OLE (object linking and embedding) is very complex and difficult to implement so I don't expect to see it in the near future.


FWIW, I am reading elsewhere that Mac <-> PC compatibility is promised to be much improved in the 2011 version of Office, with specific reference to OLE implementation. How that relates to differences in OLE/Windows versus whatever/Mac is beyond me. Reading between the lines however ... any attempts to create OLE or whatever linking of Igor Pro with MS Office software now will a) require different mindsets to make it work on both platforms, b) may actually only work on a PC and not at all or sparingly on a Mac, and c) break in the newest release of Office in three months anyway.

a.kaiser wrote:
... one killer-feature ... that seems to be blocking users from switching from Origin to Igor ... In my group THAT would really help to convince people to use Igor.


With the response that Howard has given, a "better" approach to entice Origin users might be to find data analysis problems that highlight the clear strengths of Igor Pro vs Origin.

That of course also applies for Igor Pro vs Excel ... or vs ProFit ... or vs MatLab ... or vs ... Indeed, I wonder (to myself mostly) whether IgorExchange would be a proper place to post such comparisons. I think I have seen such things done on other software "support" sites, for example as something akin to a "Igor Pro vs Other Software" forum. Follow ups to this idea (if the interest arises) might be better directed to the IgorExchange.com forum.

In any event, good luck in your efforts to convert your colleagues.

--
J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAHuntsville
As a follow-up to this, the LinkBack project (http://www.linkbackproject.org/) provides a way for documents to communicate on the Mac. I have just discovered the true power of this while creating lecture notes in Curio (http://zengobi.com/) where I included a linked equation made with LaTeXiT (http://pierre.chachatelier.fr/programmation/latexit_en.php). I was able to click on the equation in Curio, enable the LaTeXiT edit, change the equation, and have that equation dynamically change within my lecture note idea space. Wow!

Development of this capability to allow dynamic link back to a graph/table/whatever copied from Igor Pro and pasted within Curio would be phenomenal!!!!!! Would that I knew MacOS level programming ....

--
J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAHuntsville
One can obtain similar functionality as follows.

0. Copy-paste the desired graph from Igor Pro into Powerpoint
1. In Igor Pro, do "Save Graph Copy..." to save the desired graph as a pxp file
2. In Powerpoint, do "Insert -> Object" and then choose "Create from file" and select the pxp file from step 1
3. Place the pxp object next to the copy-pasted graph--off slide if desired

The pxp file is now contained as an object in the Powerpoint file. If someone needs to make modifications to the graph, they can double click the pxp object in Powerpoint, modify the graph under Igor Pro, and then copy-paste the new version back into Powerpoint.

As long as you first do "Save" in Igor Pro, the pxp object will be updated when you do "Save" in Powerpoint.

You can do this with any Windows application with capability to insert file objects.

The attachment shows an example (Powerpoint 2007).


agarttha wrote:
One can obtain similar functionality as follows.
...

You can do this with any Windows application with capability to insert file objects. ...


Yes ... this is a good trick in the meantime! Create the graph, save it as a stand-alone experiment, and then embed the graph and the experiment both in your application. The downside is, you have to copy/paste back the graph should you make any changes to it. In other words, the link-back to update the graph from IgorPro to the given app is not dynamic, it is manual.

This trick should work with Mac too (though I've not tested it) ... copy / paste as an object a link to the .pxp file that stores the graph.

As a note, the SnapIt package would do step 1 with some additional advantages (eg being able to save notes with the graph).

--
J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAHuntsville