Digit shaping in charts and maps
To understand how digit shaping is applied to charts and maps, you must know which chart and map objects are considered text and which objects are considered numeric values.
The following table describes the chart and map objects that are considered text.
| Container | Object |
|---|---|
| Chart | chart title, subtitle, footer, notes, legend item, legend title, regression label, marker label, background image label, axis titles, discrete axis label (for example, category axis label, x-axis), baseline labels |
| Map | map title, subtitle, footer, legend title, notes, axis labels |
The following table describes the chart and map objects that are considered numeric values.
| Container | Object |
|---|---|
| Chart | numeric axis label (for example, measure axis label, y-axis), numeric values that appear in the legend (you can select to show the first, last, maximum, minimum value for each item in legends), numeric values that appear in the chart |
| Map | legend items |
The following list describes the different digit shaping options and how digit shaping is applied to charts and maps.
- The digit shape options for text objects, which include titles, footers, and labels, are Default, None, National, and Contextual. Digit shape options for numeric values are Default, None, and National. There is no Contextual option for numeric values.
- By default, digit shaping is not applied to numbers that appear on an object that is considered text. For example, if a chart shows year data on the x-axis and the content language specified in the IBM® Cognos® Analytics portal is Arabic (Egypt), no digit shaping is applied because the x-axis label is considered a string.
The following list describes the default digit shaping behavior for charts and maps when the content language implies non-European digits, such as Arabic (Egypt).
- Numeric values that have a specific format, such as decimal or currency, are displayed as Arabic-Indic.
- Except for matrix charts, numeric axis labels for charts and maps
are displayed in European digits.
This is due to the way that charts and maps are rendered. The engine used to render charts and maps does not perform any formatting for numeric axis labels. No locale information is passed, and consequently the labels are displayed as European digits. To display the labels as Arabic-Indic, select the digit shaping option National.
Matrix charts are rendered using International Components for Unicode (ICU) to format numbers. Locale information is passed and the numbers are shaped accordingly. For example, when the content language is Arabic (Egypt), ICU displays numbers as Arabic-Indic.
- Numbers within text labels are displayed as is. That is, no digit shaping is applied.
The following list describes the default digit shaping behavior for charts and maps when the content language is Thai.
- Numeric values that have a specific format, such as decimal or currency, are displayed as European digits.
- Numbers within text labels are displayed as is. That is, no digit shaping is applied.