How to use MSChart with C#

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This small tutorial is about adding MS Chart Control to WinForms using C#. The MSChart control is installed with Microsoft Excel so make sure you have Excel installed on your PC.

• First step is to add a reference to the MSChart control to Visual Studio toolbox. Select menu->Tools->Add/Remove Toolbox items, then the COM Components tab and look for Microsoft Chart Control version 6.0 (OLEBD).
• Then add create a WinForm project and add an MSChart control to your form from the Toolbox and name it axMSChart. Now you can add the following code to you form’s load method or some other appropriate place.
  

  Code: Select all

  // Create chart data for three computers. Data is in the form of number of transactions per minute.
  // We will only display data gathered between 10:00 AM and 10:03 AM.
  axMSChart.ChartData = new Object[5, 4] {{null, "Computer A", "Computer B", "Computer C"}, 
                                          {"10:00 AM", 123131, 242142, 254353}, 
                                          {"10:01 AM", 113121, 171345, 205432}, 
                                          {"10:02 AM", 126323, 281876, 269743}, 
                                          {"10:03 AM", 199833, 242122, 283445}};
  
  // Add a title and legend on the right side of the chart.
  axMSChart.Title.Text = "Performance";
  axMSChart.Legend.Location.LocationType = MSChart20Lib.VtChLocationType.VtChLocationTypeRight;
  axMSChart.Legend.Location.Visible = true;
  
  // Add titles to the axes.
  axMSChart.Plot.get_Axis(MSChart20Lib.VtChAxisId.VtChAxisIdX, null).AxisTitle.Text = "Time";
  axMSChart.Plot.get_Axis(MSChart20Lib.VtChAxisId.VtChAxisIdY, null).AxisTitle.Text = "Transactions/minute";
  
  // Set chart type.
  axMSChart.chartType = MSChart20Lib.VtChChartType.VtChChartType3dBar;
  
  // Other available chart types are 
  // VtChChartType2dBar, VtChChartType3dLine, VtChChartType2dLine, VtChChartType3dArea,
  // VtChChartType2dArea, VtChChartType3dStep, VtChChartType2dStep,
  // VtChChartType3dCombination, VtChChartType2dCombination, VtChChartType2dPie and 
  // VtChChartType2dXY.
  
  // Set whether all the series in the chart are stacked or not.
  axMSChart.Stacking = false;