free data plotting applications

[brokenshoes]

I'm looking for a program that can let me plot data by hand for my experiments at school, similar to a graphing calculator but I don't need an eqn to do it, or a data file (but if it can do a regression for me then great). I've tried almost all the programs I found on the Apple site and none of them worked. Does anyone know of any?

Thanks.

 

[mkrishnan]

What do you mean, "plot data by hand" -- you want to make a chart or plot without any actual data or a equation? I would think the main way to do that would be some kind of drawing program. Mostly when I want a fake chart, I make fake data in Excel (or SPSS or OpenOffice Calc or whatever) and then plot it.

 

[brokenshoes]

Well the point of most of the experiments we do is to take the data then do a regression and find the eqn, so yes, without an eqn to begin with. I don't need a fake chart or fake data, I need to be able to plot it without an eqn or data file; I take the data by hand during the experiment then transfer it to a graph. I'm sure that works for someone with Excel, however I don't have Excel, and on occasions I need to use a log graph so...

Anyone heard of any program that can do this?

 

[mkrishnan]

I think I understand what you mean now. If you could do it in Excel if you had Excel, then the lead candidate would be OpenOffice.org. Download it and see if its spreadsheet program (similar to Excel) does what you need.

http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/aqua.html

 

[boast]

in OOo Spreadsheet you can just place the data in two or three columns, and then do "insert > chart"

should be easy after a bit of trial and error

 

[MisterMe]

I'm looking for a program that can let me plot data by hand for my experiments at school, similar to a graphing calculator but I don't need an eqn to do it, or a data file (but if it can do a regression for me then great). I've tried almost all the programs I found on the Apple site and none of them worked. Does anyone know of any?

Thanks.

Plot is freeware. It has a tiny footprint, but produces spectacular graphs. Did I say that it is freeware?

 

[mkrishnan]

Plot is freeware. It has a tiny footprint, but produces spectacular graphs. Did I say that it is freeware?

Plot is actually pretty impressive.