This tutorial assumes you already know how to write text to a file. If you aren't sure, please review and understand FileIO.

We want to get our cool new hotplate data into Excel so we can graph it. In this little tutorial, we'll use a smaller example file to show the steps.

In your code, the only change you need to make is in the output file name. Instead of “.txt”, use “.csv.” <syntaxhighlight lang=“cpp” line start=“1” highlight=“13” >

    ofstream myfile ("example.csv");

As long as you are printing your output like the following, Excel will be able to open it:

0.0,100.0,100.0,100.0,0.0,
0.0,45.1,60.6,66.2,0.0,
0.0,45.1,60.6,66.2,0.0,
0.0,100.0,100.0,100.0,0.0,

(Yours will be much bigger. The point is the *comma seperated values* arranged row by row.)

The default location for your output file is the lab's project folder inside the workspace folder

If you double click on your .CSV file, Excel should open up and show you something like this:

Select your table of values. Then click the “Insert” tab and find “Other Charts” in the Charts group. The one we want is the first one under “Surface.”

Click “Switch Row/Column” if your view of the graph isn't very good. Also, another color is not required, but you can change it under “Chart Styles.”