Chart styles

Use the styles included with the global report style sheet, GlobalReportStyles.css, to format charts.

The following table shows formatting from the GlobalStyleSheet.css style sheet for charts:

Charts obtain the following formatting from the GlobalStyleSheet.css.

Table 1. Chart styles

This two-columned table provides information about the items in one column and the style in the second column.

Item Style
Charts 1 pt light gray border
Titles and labels 10 point bold font

Additionally, when you create a new chart, use the following guidelines to match the existing chart reports.

  • Use the default width, unless there is more than one chart on the report. When you include multiple charts in a single report, set the chart width to 750px.
  • To use gradients and color palettes, copy and paste the strings from the table in Global report styles into the XML report specification.
  • As a general guideline, select the chart type based on the data that you expect to be returned.
    • Use line graphs as the chart type only when you can guarantee the report retrieves continuous data.
    • If there are multiple series, a stacked bar works better than a non-stacked bar.
    • As a best practice, use percentages only when the total percentage equals 100%. Pie charts tend to confuse people when the values do not add up to 100%.
  • If there are only two series on a chart and you display both the Y1 and Y2 axes, as a best practice you must match the colors to the first two palette colors for the axis labels.

The following example shows a chart that does not use the global styles.

The following example shows a chart that uses the global styles and has additional formatting applied.

Date formats for globalized versions

If you use a globalized version of the Unica reports package, you see a different date format in your chart reports depending on which locale you use. Cognos chart reports use the date style short.

The following table shows the date formats for chart reports for all available locales.

Table 2. Cognos chart reports date formats for globalized versions

This two-columned table provides examples of the date format that is used by Cognos chart reports for globalized versions.

Locale Cognos chart reports date format example
English 3/18/14
Brazilian Portuguese 18/03/14
French 18/03/14
German 18.03.14
Italian 18/03/14
Japanese 14/03/18
Korean 14-03-18
Russian 18.03.14
Simplified Chinese 14-3-18
Spanish 18/03/14