Copying Graphs
You can copy and paste any graph into another Macintosh program. Simply select Copy from the Edit menu (or use command-C) when the graph window is foremost on your screen. Switch to the other application, and select Paste.
The graphic object is a grouped selection of multiple objects. Selecting Ungroup successively in the other program will ungroup these objects, which include: the axis titles, the axis notations, and the graph itself. All text is in Palatino font, size 12 by default; however, you can easily change the default font in the Preferences dialog on the Text tab . The format of the exported graphic depends on the type of graph as well as a preference setting.
Histograms and CDF plots are always exported as vector art. You can ungroup these and change the line style or fill pattern for the histograms.
Note also that when you copy a histogram graph, two items are placed on the clipboard: the graphic rendition as well as a text rendition of the histogram data itself. Depending on the program into which you subsequently do a paste, the correct item will be inserted. For more information, see the Webpage about exporting raw data.
This is also true when you copy a graph from the kinetics window: both the graphic rendition and the spreadsheet values are copied into the clipboard. If you paste into a spreadsheet, you will get two columns: one is time, the other is the computed value as a function of time. For more information, see the section on the kinetics platform.
The other types of graphs are, by default, exported as a black & white bitmap (except for density and pseudo-color plots, which are 256-color bitmaps). Bitmaps are most quickly drawn by other programs and the representation is quite good. However, bitmaps cannot be resized without risking significant distortion. If you want to export high-quality vector art for all graph types, select PICT or Quicktime format in the Preferences dialog on the Output tab . Now copied graphs (or layouts) will have high-quality line graphs that can be resized without loss of information. However, it may take the drawing programs considerably longer to present them to you; especially for plots that are not contour plots. See the information on making publication quality graphics.
If you hold down the option key when you select Copy from the menu, then FlowJo will include with the graphic any gates that are drawn on the current graph. (You can change the default behavior of including gates or not through the preferences dialog).