Working with Series

Updated on May 11, 2026

A series is a set of data - a line or a set of columns, for example. All data plotted on a chart comes from the series object.

Series Classes

There are several base classes used to unite the different kinds of series and values they work with.

SeriesBase Class

The SeriesBase class is the base class for all series in RadSpreadProcessing. It exposes the following members:

Member	Description
SeriesType	Gets the type of the series.
Title	Gets or sets the title of the series.
Outline	Represents the outline of a chart. It is of type Outline.
Fill	Represents the fill of the series. You can use the SolidFill type to set the series color.
Clone()	Creates a deep copy of the object and returns the cloning.

The differnt types of charts support different types of series. To meet this need, the base class is inherited by the CategoriesSeriesBase and PointSerierBase base classes representing the different series types.

CategorySeriesBase

A base class for all series that use Values and Categories.

Member	Description
Values	Gets or sets the data for the values of the series.
Categories	Gets or sets the data for the categories of the series.

The CategorySeriesBase is inherited by the following classes, which represent concrete different types of series:

• AreaSeries
• LineSeries
• BarSeries
• PieSeries

PointSeriesBase

A base class for all series that use X values and Y values.

Member	Description
XValues	Gets or sets the data for the X values of the series.
YValues	Gets or sets the data for the Y values of the series.

PointSeriesBase is inherited by the following classes, which represent concrete different types of series:

• ScatterSeries
• BubbleSeries

Add and Remove Series

The adding of the new series is done through the SeriesCollection Add() method overloads and removing is done through the Remove() method. The first overload throws an exception when the series parameter passed is not of the correct type and the other Add() overloads create a series of the appropriate type. The overloads of the base SeriesCollection type are listed below:

Overload	Description
Add(IChartData categoriesData, IChartData valuesData, Title title = null)	Adds a series with the specified categories, values, and optional title. Returns a SeriesBase instance.
Add()	Adds a new empty series. Returns a SeriesBase instance.
Remove(SeriesBase series)	Removes the specified series from the collection.

To better illustrate how you can change the series of a chart, let's take the sample data and chart from Figure 1.

Figure 1: Initial state of a chart

Example 1: Add and remove series from a chart

C#

// The worksheet contains a chart of type bar.
DocumentChart chart = (worksheet.Charts.First() as FloatingChartShape).Chart;
SeriesGroup chartComponent = chart.SeriesGroups.First();
SeriesBase firstSeries = chartComponent.Series.First();
chartComponent.Series.Remove(firstSeries);

CellRange valuesRange = new CellRange(2, 3, 5, 3); // D3:D6
CellRange categoriesRange = new CellRange(2, 1, 5, 1); // B3:B6
CellRange titleRange = new CellRange(1, 3, 1, 3); // B3:B6

WorkbookFormulaChartData valuesData = new WorkbookFormulaChartData(worksheet, valuesRange);
WorkbookFormulaChartData categoriesData = new WorkbookFormulaChartData(worksheet, categoriesRange);
Title chartTitle = new FormulaTitle(new WorkbookFormulaChartData(worksheet, titleRange));

SeriesBase newSeries = chartComponent.Series.Add(categoriesData, valuesData, chartTitle);
Type seriesType = newSeries.GetType(); // Will be of type BarSeries

Figure 2: Modified series of a chart

The same methods for adding and removing series can be accessed through the concrete SeriesCollection of the concrete SeriesGroup and they will return concrete Series object.

Example 2: Add series to a chart using concrete SeriesGroup object

C#

BarSeriesGroup chartComponent = chart.SeriesGroups.First() as BarSeriesGroup;
BarSeries newSeries = chartComponent.Series.Add(categoriesData, valuesData, chartTitle);

Iterating the Series of a Chart

You can access the Series property of the SeriesGroup object contained in the SeriesGroups property of the Chart object and iterate the SeriesBase objects in it.

Example 3: Iterate series

C#

DocumentChart chart = (worksheet.Charts.First() as FloatingChartShape).Chart;
SeriesGroup seriesGroup = chart.SeriesGroups.First();

foreach (CategorySeriesBase series in seriesGroup.Series.Where(s => s is CategorySeriesBase))
{
	if (series.Categories.ChartDataType == ChartDataType.Formula)
	{
		Worksheet dataWorksheet;
		IEnumerable<CellRange> categories = (series.Categories as WorkbookFormulaChartData).EnumerateCellRanges(out dataWorksheet);
	}

	if (series.Values.ChartDataType == ChartDataType.Formula)
	{
		Worksheet dataWorksheet;
		IEnumerable<CellRange> values = (series.Values as WorkbookFormulaChartData).EnumerateCellRanges(out dataWorksheet);
	}
}

Making Changes to the Series

You can modify the properties of the base class for all series - SeriesBase.

Example 4: Change series

C#

DocumentChart chart = (worksheet.Charts.First() as FloatingChartShape).Chart;
SeriesGroup seriesGroup = chart.SeriesGroups.First();
CategorySeriesBase firstSeries = seriesGroup.Series.Where(s => s is CategorySeriesBase).First() as CategorySeriesBase;

firstSeries.Title = new TextTitle("New title");
firstSeries.Values = new WorkbookFormulaChartData(worksheet, new CellRange(2, 3, 5, 3));

SeriesGroup Class and Properties Related to Specific Series Types

There are properties defined on SeriesGroup level. The SeriesGroup base class represents a group of series and is inherited by the classes holding specific types of series. In addition to the SeriesType and Series properties, which give you access to the type of the series and the series collection respectively, there are properties implemented in the inheritors. The additional properties are specific for the type of series and give you control over the appearance of all the series in the group.

BarSeriesGroup

Property	Type	Description
BarDirection	BarDirection	Determines the orientation of the bar chart. BarDirection.Bar results in a horizontal bar chart; BarDirection.Column results in a vertical column chart.

DoughnutSeriesGroup

Property	Type	Description
HoleSizePercent	int	Gets or sets the size of the hole relative to the size of the doughnut. The value is limited to values between 0 and 90.

Properties Related to Specific Series Types and Defined in Concrete SeriesBase Implementations

These properties enable you to control the options for each of the series independently.

BubbleSeries

Property	Type	Description
BubbleSizes	IChartData	Gets or sets the data for the bubble size of the series. You can set it to a specific cell range or directly using values.

LineSeries

Property	Type	Description
IsSmooth	bool	Determines whether the line of the series is smooth.
Marker	Marker	Represents the marker of the series.

ScatterSeries

Property	Type	Description
IsSmooth	bool	Determines whether the line of the series is smooth.
Marker	Marker	Represents the marker of the series.
ScatterStyle	ScatterStyle	Determines the style of the scatter series. See the table below for possible values.

The ScatterStyle enumeration supports the following values:

Value	Description
None	Points on the scatter chart are not connected with straight lines and markers are not drawn.
Line	Points on the scatter chart are connected with straight lines but markers are not drawn.
LineMarker	Points on the scatter chart are connected with straight lines and markers are drawn.
Marker	Points on the scatter chart are not connected with lines and markers are drawn.
Smooth	Points on the scatter chart are connected with smoothed lines but markers are not drawn.
SmoothMarker	Points on the scatter chart are connected with smoothed lines and markers are drawn.

Example 5: Customize the appearance of ScatterSeries

C#

SeriesGroup scatterSeriesGroup = chart.Chart.SeriesGroups.First() as ScatterSeriesGroup;
ScatterSeries scatterSeries = scatterSeriesGroup.Series.First() as ScatterSeries;
scatterSeries.Marker = new Marker();
scatterSeries.Marker.Symbol = MarkerStyle.Plus;
scatterSeries.Marker.Size = 22;
scatterSeries.Outline.Fill = new SolidFill(Colors.Red);

Series Grouping

Some series groups (Bar, Line and Area) implement the ISupportGrouping interface. It defines the Grouping property which is of type SeriesGrouping enum. The enum contains the following members: SeriesGrouping.Standard, SeriesGrouping.Stacked and SeriesGrouping.PercentStacked. For the Bar chart, the Standard grouping results in a clustered chart. See the following examples for what the results of different grouping looks like.

Figure 3: Sample data

Example 6: Creating standard/clustered bar chart with vertical orientation

C#

FloatingChartShape chartShape = worksheet.Charts.Add(new CellIndex(10, 1), selectedRange, ChartType.Bar);
(chartShape.Chart.SeriesGroups.First() as ISupportGrouping).Grouping = SeriesGrouping.Standard;

Figure 4: Standard/clustered bar chart with vertical orientation

Example 7: Creating stacked bar chart with vertical orientation

C#

FloatingChartShape chartShape = worksheet.Charts.Add(new CellIndex(10, 1), selectedRange, ChartType.Bar);
(chartShape.Chart.SeriesGroups.First() as ISupportGrouping).Grouping = SeriesGrouping.Stacked;

Figure 5: Stacked bar chart with vertical orientation

Example 8: Creating percent-stacked bar chart with vertical orientation

C#

FloatingChartShape chartShape = worksheet.Charts.Add(new CellIndex(10, 1), selectedRange, ChartType.Bar);
(chartShape.Chart.SeriesGroups.First() as ISupportGrouping).Grouping = SeriesGrouping.PercentStacked;

Figure 6: Percent-stacked bar chart with vertical orientation