Graphics Packages

A graphics program can display numeric data in a visual format for analytical or presentation purposes. Any other types of presentation graphics displays are possible. Draw and Input graphics packages support freehand drawing, while desktop publishing programs provide predrawn clip art graphics for insertion into documents. Popular business graphics packages are Harvard Graphics, Freelance, Corel Draw, and etc.
There are two types of graphics programs. Analytical graphics programs are used to analyze data. Presentation graphics programs are used to create attractive finished graphs for presentations or reports.

• Analytical Graphics: Analytical graphics make numerical data much easier to grasp than when it is as rows and columns of numbers. Graphics may take the form of bar charts, line graphs, and pie charts. The bar chart gives an instant visual profile of the some figures. The line graph shows a visual profile in another way. The pie chart shows the proportion of some figures as slices of pie. High-low graph shows a range, such as house prices.
  Most analytical graphics programs come as part of spreadsheet programs, such as Lotus 1-2-3 and Quattro-Pro. They are helpful in displaying economic trends, sales figures, and the like for easy analysis. Analytical graphics may be viewed on a monitor or printed out.

• Presentation Graphics: Users can use presentation graphics to communicate a message or to persuade other people, such as supervisors or clients. Thus, presentation graphics are used by marketing or sales people, for example.
  Presentation graphics look more sophisticated than analytical graphics, using color, titles, a three- dimensional look, and other features a graphic artist might use. High-end presentation graphics packages even include animation capabilities. These packages allow users to create and edit animated graphics on usersr microcomputer.