How to force whole numbers to have one decimal place in Adobe Illustrator?

Question

I make a lot of graphs using Illustrator for my company. Unfortunately, the graphing tool in Illustrator is very archaic. When adding number labels to graphs, Illustrator automatically removes .0 from numbers. I need all numbers to have the same sig figs. Is there a way to use GREP or any other kind of script to find whole numbers and add a .0 to the end? Or to force all numbers to include one decimal places?

Thank you in advance! Steven

Answer 1

You can program your own graphs. This gives you total flexibility over the results. While this may seem daunting it is not. Most infographics are quite easy to codify, things like bar charts, line charts, radar charts, doughnut charts are all very easy to do.

All the simple charts build on the same code structure.

1. Get a array (or arraylike structure) of data
2. Loop over each item and draw a item.
   • draw any annotations etc...
3. Style items

OK lets start with a bar chart, for simplicity lets ignore how to obtain the data lets just make a dummy list and draw it

#target illustrator


data =[1.2, 3.0, 2.1, 0.42, 3.0, 1.1, 1.8];
doc = app.activeDocument;

// supporting vars
var mul = 24
var offsetX =100
var offsetY =-150


for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++){
    var val = data[i];
    var newPath = doc.pathItems.add();
    newPath.setEntirePath( [
      [i * mul + offsetX, 0 + offsetY],
      [i * mul + offsetX,  val *  mul  + offsetY]
    ]);
}

Image 1: Simple unstyled graph

Ok, this draws some lines. Why not boxes? Well its relatively easy for you to make a line into a rectangle by applying a style with a mitered offset, convert to shape, pattern brush or art brush. So I would prefer to leave the styling to styles as it means the same script can be reused easily. Likewise i would like to leave coloring of datasets to color group swtaches.

Let us modularize the thing a bit and add a named style and some colors to the lines. Still not entirely practivcal but lets remedy that later. I assume you have a style named "graph", with a mitered offset effect, and a color group named "graph".

#target illustrator

data =[1.2, 3.0, 2.1, 0.42, 3.0, 1.1, 1.8];
doc = app.activeDocument;

// supporting vars
var mul = 24
var offsetX =100
var offsetY =-150

for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++){
    var val = data[i];
    var newPath = makeBarLine(i, val);
    setStyle(i, newPath);
}

function makeBarLine(i, val){
    var newPath = doc.pathItems.add();
    newPath.setEntirePath( [
        [i * mul + offsetX, 0 + offsetY],
        [i * mul + offsetX,  val *  mul  + offsetY]
    ]);
    return newPath
 }

function setStyle(i, pathitem){
    doc.graphicStyles.getByName("graph").applyTo( pathitem );
    pathitem.fillColor=doc.swatchGroups["graph"].getAllSwatches()[i].color;
}

Image 2: Same graph but with automated styling

Ok so far we have had a slightly unrealistic table in reality your data is most likely contained in some sort of list of lists.

#target illustrator
data =[["Apricot", 1.2],
            ["Banana", 3.0], 
            ["Clementine", 2.1],
            ["Dragon Fruit", 0.42], 
            ["Entawak", 3.0],
            ["Fig", 1.1], 
            ["Guava", 1.8]
            ];

var doc = app.activeDocument;

// supporting vars
var mul = 24
var offsetX =100
var offsetY =-150

for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++){
    var val = data[i];
    var newPath = makeBarLine(i, val[1]);
    makeLabel(i,  val[0]);
    valueOnTop(i,  val[1]);
    setStyle(i, newPath);
}

function makeLabel(i, val){
         var ptext = doc.textFrames.add();
         ptext.contents = val;
         ptext.rotate(-70);
         ptext.left = i * mul + offsetX-10;
         ptext.top =  -10 + offsetY;
}

function valueOnTop(i, val){
         var ptext = doc.textFrames.add();
         ptext.contents = val.toFixed(1);
         ptext.left = i * mul + offsetX;    
         ptext.top = val *  mul  + offsetY+12 ;
         ptext.textRange.justification = Justification.CENTER;      
}


function makeBarLine(i, val){
    var newPath = doc.pathItems.add();
    newPath.setEntirePath( [
        [i * mul + offsetX, 0 + offsetY],
        [i * mul + offsetX,  val *  mul  + offsetY]
    ]);
    return newPath
 }

function setStyle(i, pathitem){
    doc.graphicStyles.getByName("graph").applyTo( pathitem );
    pathitem.fillColor=doc.swatchGroups["graph"].getAllSwatches()[i].color;
}

Image 3: Adding decoration is not much harder

So you see we can get incrementtaly better. THere is still one thing to fix. That is the system will fail if there are more bars than colors in the color set. And finally how to read a csv file for example. I will try to flesh this out tomorrow.

Answer 2

The type controls in Illustrator are limited vs. InDesign.

You can build much more customized graphs in ID, with the full range of advanced controls over typography, with the downside that everything needs to be done by hand.

If the charts you're doing are always the same, but with different values, this can be partially automated or scripted.

There are also ingenious charting fonts like the FF Chartwell that could be handy. I use this alot, actually. See: How to use EPS to build graphs in Illustrator?

Not sure if this is what you wanted to read, but something to consider if you need to streamline that part.