If you prefer different colors for the graphs and grid elements than the defaults, you can change any of these color selections using the Colors dialog box. Select Graph Paper from the Options menu and click on the Colors tab to bring up this dialog.
Graphmatica has four pre-selected color schemes: monochrome (black on white), and color with a gray, white, or black background. You can choose one of these by selecting the appropriate radio button along the top of the dialog box. In addition, you can create your own custom color scheme. Just select the item whose color you want to modify in the listbox on the left, and then select the color you want to use in the listbox on the right. You can choose among 128 colors (a subset of the colors supported by HTML). The results of your selections are displayed in the preview window on the right side of the dialog box. When you are satisfied with the new color scheme, click OK, and the graph window will be redrawn to match it.
The grid elements you can select colors for are the following:
| Background | background of the graphing area |
| Border | border around the graphing area |
| X/Y Axes | lines for the x and y axes |
| Gridlines | dashed lines or dots (depending on the detail level selected) of the graph paper |
| Legends | numbers along the axes which give the coordinate of the corresponding vertical or horizontal line |
| Annotations | free-form text elements you can create using the Annotations... option in the Edit menu |
| Graph 1 - Graph 16 | Colors to rotate through for graphing (when 16 graphs have been drawn, the next graph uses color 1). |
Your color selections are saved in your graphmat.ini file. The color scheme is not saved with the setup information of a normal graph document, so you cannot lose your color setup by loading a graph document that was saved under a different color scheme.
The selected color scheme applies to the screen and color image output. Output on black-and-white printers and monochrome copied graphs is always black-on-white. A white background is suggested (but not used automatically) for color printing, for obvious reasons. You can copy or export graphs in either monochrome or color at any time by selecting the appropriate option in the Edit menu. Note that if you select the monochrome color scheme, copying the graphs in color draws them using the default color scheme (gray).