[Tex/LaTex] Basic Bar Plot with long text legend, horizontal guides and percentage values

bar chartpgfplots

I am new to pgfplots and actually I want to create something pretty basic.
Yesterday, I started modifying my chart with the help of the pgfplot manual and the help of Google but unfortunately, I couldn't make it yet.

Something like this I would like to create:

This leads me to the following questions:

How can I add

the long descriptions with linebreaks?
the horizontal guidelines
the percantage in or above the bars?

I am not that far yet, but maybe I need the standard-deviation later as well. It would be awesome if someone could tell me how to add this!

I also tried to use something like a separate legend on the right to outsource the long descriptions but I couldn't archieve this.

Here my unsuccessful attempt:

\begin{figure}
     \centering
     \pgfplotstableread[row sep=\\,col sep=&]{
        interval & carT \\
        A & 31.1  \\
        B & 17.8 \\
        C & 44.4 \\
        D & 6.7 \\
     }\mydata

      \begin{tikzpicture}
          \begin{axis}[
              title=Aus welchen Gründen wurde eLearning in Ihrem Klinikum implementiert?,
              ybar,
              bar width=30pt,
              width=250pt,
              ymax=50,
              ylabel=Anzahl in \%,
              symbolic x coords={A,B,C,D},
              xtick=data
              ]
              \addplot table[x=interval,y=carT]{\mydata};
          \end{axis}
      \end{tikzpicture}

     \caption{test}
    \end{figure}

Another thing I would like to try, would be the mapping of the bars via different colors, instead of A=, B=… and so on…

To be honest, pgfplots might be a very powerful tool to create charts, but imho it is very complex and time-consuming to create it! Maybe someone knows a simpler way to create basic charts? (except bchart, there is too less functionality)

I hope someone can help me with this.

Thanks alot in advance!

Best Answer

1. The Labels: you can add the description to the xticklabels field. There you can enter the text, and add "normal" linebreaks with \\. In order for this to work, you'll have to change the style of xticklabel to e.g. align=center (you also do this for "normal" TikZ nodes, if you want linebreaks. You can also make the font smaller, so more words fit on one line:

          xticklabel style={align=center,font=\tiny},
          xticklabels={{Aufgrund der \\ gesetzlichen \\ Nachweispflicht},
                       {Einweisung zur \\ Nutzung medizinischer \\ Geräte},
                       {Zur generellen \\ Weiterbildung},
                       {Sonstige}},

2. The Grid Lines: Adding grid lines is very easy. As decribed on page 330 of the PGFPlots manual, you can create major and minor grids for all 3 axes (x, y, z) independently, or all together:

grid=major,    % Major grid on all axes
xminorgrids,   % Minor grid only on x axis
...

So you need to set

          ymajorgrids

3. The Percentage Values: As shown in example 77 in the PGFPlots gallery, you can add nodes with

          nodes near coords,
          nodes near coords align={vertical},

Again, from the documentation, page 114, you'll find that you can even specify the format. The default is \pgfmathprintnumber\pgfplotspointmeta, which prints the current point. To add a %, simply add a % at the back:

          nodes near coords={\pgfmathprintnumber\pgfplotspointmeta \%},
          nodes near coords align={vertical},

4. Standard deviation: You can add a standard deviation, if you also add it to the table (e.g. in a column called sd), and then add the following to the \addplot: (taken from PGFPlots manual, page 293-294):

\addplot+[error bars/.cd, y dir=both, y explicit] % (error bars in y directions, up and down = both)
table[x=interval,y=carT, y error=sd]{\mydata};

To sum up: Add everything to the axes options, and you're finished:

\documentclass[tikz]{standalone}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\begin{document}
     \pgfplotstableread[row sep=\\,col sep=&]{
        interval & carT & sd\\
        A & 31.1 & 3 \\
        B & 17.8 & 4.2 \\
        C & 44.4 & 1.0\\
        D & 6.7 & 0.1 \\
     }\mydata

      \begin{tikzpicture}
          \begin{axis}[
              title=Aus welchen Gründen wurde eLearning in Ihrem Klinikum implementiert?,
              ybar,
              ymajorgrids,
              bar width=30pt,
              width=250pt,
              ymax=50,
              ylabel=Anzahl in \%,
              symbolic x coords={A,B,C,D},
              xtick=data,
              xticklabel style={align=center,font=\tiny},
              xticklabels={{Aufgrund der \\ gesetzlichen \\ Nachweispflicht},
                           {Einweisung zur \\ Nutzung medizinischer \\ Geräte},
                           {Zur generellen \\ Weiterbildung},
                           {Sonstige}},
              nodes near coords={\pgfmathprintnumber\pgfplotspointmeta \%},
              nodes near coords align={vertical},
              ]
              \addplot+[error bars/.cd, y dir=both, y explicit] table[x=interval,y=carT, y error=sd]{\mydata};
          \end{axis}
      \end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Different Colors: If you create a new \addplot for every bar, then they will be drawn next to each other and in different colors. You can then easily specify a \legend. As I'm not very familiar with the tables, I added the plots manually with coordinates. Maybe somebody else can give you a hint on how to create such a plot from a table.

\documentclass[tikz]{standalone}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\begin{document}

      \begin{tikzpicture}
          \begin{axis}[
              title=Aus welchen Gründen wurde eLearning in Ihrem Klinikum implementiert?,
              ybar,
              ymajorgrids,
              bar width=30pt,
              width=250pt,
              ymax=50,
              ylabel=Anzahl in \%,
              xticklabels={},
              nodes near coords={\pgfmathprintnumber\pgfplotspointmeta \%},
              nodes near coords align={vertical},
              legend pos=outer north east,
              ]

              \addplot+[error bars/.cd, y dir=both, y explicit] coordinates{ (1,31.1) +- (0,3)};
              \addplot+[error bars/.cd, y dir=both, y explicit] coordinates{ (1,17.8) +- (0,5)};
              \addplot+[error bars/.cd, y dir=both, y explicit] coordinates{ (1,44.4) +- (0,5)};
              \addplot+[error bars/.cd, y dir=both, y explicit] coordinates{ (1,6.7) +- (0,2)};

             \legend{{Aufgrund der gesetzlichen Nachweispflicht},
                 {Einweisung zur Nutzung medizinischer Geräte},
                 {Zur generellen Weiterbildung},
                 {Sonstige}}
          \end{axis}
      \end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Final words: Yes, PGFPlots is complex, but it is very powerful. After working with it for some time, you'll have a quite good feeling about what you'll have to look for, and you'll quickly find the relevant information via Google or here on TeX.SE. To be honest: I had to do some quick Google queries for this answer too, but if you know what you're looking for, this is quite fast. So imo, it is worth the time to get to know PGFPlots.

If you have MATLAB, one alternative is to use the Matlab2Tikz script, which converts a MATLAB figure to a PGFPlots graph.

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[Tex/LaTex] Basic bar chart with text as x axis labels

The version of pgfplots that is included in Ubuntu 10.10 is 1.2.2. Apparently the feature that you are using was added between then and version 1.4.1 (which is the current version).

Unless someone comes up with a workaround to add text coordinates in pgfplot 1.2, the easiest option for you is probably to upgrade to TeX Live 2010. Installing it manually isn't too hard and you will get all the newest versions. PGF related packages changed a lot since the TeX Live version that is included in Ubuntu. Also, you will be able to run tlmgr update --self --all to update your TeX installation at any time.

Here is a proof-of-concept with version 1.4 (I don't know pgfplots well, so there might be a better way to do this):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pgfplots}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[
    symbolic x coords={a small bar,a medium bar,a large bar},
    xtick=data]
    \addplot[ybar,fill=blue] coordinates {
        (a small bar,42)
        (a medium bar,50)
        (a large bar,80)
    };
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

example

[Tex/LaTex] plotting two time series with bounds

This happens because PGFPlots only uses one "stack" per axis: You're stacking the second confidence interval on top of the first. The easiest way to fix this is probably to use the approach described in "Is there an easy way of using line thickness as error indicator in a plot?": After plotting the first confidence interval, stack the upper bound on top again, using stack dir=minus. That way, the stack will be reset to zero, and you can draw the second confidence interval in the same fashion as the first:

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{pgfplots, tikz}

\usepackage{pgfplotstable}

\pgfplotstableread{
temps   y_h y_h__inf    y_h__sup    y_f y_f__inf    y_f__sup    

1   0.237340    0.135170    0.339511    0.237653    0.135482    0.339823    
2   0.561320    0.422007    0.700633    0.165871    0.026558    0.305184    
3   0.694760    0.534205    0.855314    0.074856    -0.085698   0.235411    
4   0.728306    0.560179    0.896432    0.003361    -0.164765   0.171487    
5   0.711710    0.544944    0.878477    -0.044582   -0.211349   0.122184    
6   0.671241    0.511191    0.831291    -0.073347   -0.233397   0.086703    
7   0.621177    0.471219    0.771135    -0.088418   -0.238376   0.061540    
8   0.569354    0.431826    0.706882    -0.094382   -0.231910   0.043146    
9   0.519973    0.396571    0.643376    -0.094619   -0.218022   0.028783    
10  0.475121    0.366990    0.583251    -0.091467   -0.199598   0.016664    
}{\table}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}

    \begin{axis}
    % y_h confidence interval
    \addplot [stack plots=y, fill=none, draw=none, forget plot]   table [x=temps, y=y_h__inf]   {\table} \closedcycle;
    \addplot [stack plots=y, fill=gray!50, opacity=0.4, draw opacity=0, area legend]   table [x=temps, y expr=\thisrow{y_h__sup}-\thisrow{y_h__inf}]   {\table} \closedcycle;
    % subtract the upper bound so our stack is back at zero
    \addplot [stack plots=y, stack dir=minus, forget plot, draw=none] table [x=temps, y=y_h__sup] {\table};

    % y_f confidence interval
    \addplot [stack plots=y, fill=none, draw=none, forget plot]   table [x=temps, y=y_f__inf]   {\table} \closedcycle;
    \addplot [stack plots=y, fill=gray!50, opacity=0.4, draw opacity=0, area legend]   table [x=temps, y expr=\thisrow{y_f__sup}-\thisrow{y_f__inf}]   {\table} \closedcycle;

    % the line plots (y_h and y_f)    
    \addplot [stack plots=false, very thick,smooth,blue]  table [x=temps, y=y_h]   {\table};
    \addplot [stack plots=false, very thick,smooth,blue]  table [x=temps, y=y_f]   {\table};
    \end{axis}

\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Best Answer

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[Tex/LaTex] Basic bar chart with text as x axis labels

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