Apache POI set Excel chart title

Question

I'm creating an Excel workbook from scratch. One of the sheets contains a chart, and I want to set the chart title.

Apache POI has a setChartTitle method on HSSFChart, but neither XSSFChart nor the format-agnostic Chart have methods to set the chart title. Since I need to create .xlsx files this is a problem for me.

After much poking around in POI code and OOXML specifications I managed to come up with this code for setting the title on a newly created Chart:

    if (chart instanceof XSSFChart) {
        XSSFChart xchart = (XSSFChart) chart;
        CTChart ctChart = xchart.getCTChart();
        CTTitle title = ctChart.addNewTitle();
        CTTx tx = title.addNewTx();
        CTTextBody rich = tx.addNewRich();
        rich.addNewBodyPr();  // body properties must exist, but can be empty
        CTTextParagraph para = rich.addNewP();
        CTRegularTextRun r = para.addNewR();
        r.setT("My chart title");
    }

This seems to work - I can load the resulting file in Excel 2013 and the chart is there with the correct title.

Is there an easier way to do this? What gotchas would I need to look out for when changing a chart title in a workbook created in Excel?

Have you thought about submitting a patch to Apache POI to add in this missing functionality to the XSSF and SS chart methods? See here for details on patches — Gagravarr
– Gagravarr, Commented May 29, 2015 at 15:53
I submitted a patch to Apache POI months ago but it has not been acted on. See the patch in Bugzilla. — jk2607674
– jk2607674, Commented Feb 3, 2016 at 17:02
Patch now committed in POI, so you can now add an answer referencing your contribution :) — Gagravarr
– Gagravarr, Commented Feb 21, 2016 at 21:18

Mario Varchmin · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-13 14:44:32Z

Before this question remains unanswered for six years, here is the answer:

You can use the XSSFChart.setTitleText(String title) method.

Example:

import java.io.FileOutputStream;

import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Sheet;
import org.apache.poi.ss.usermodel.Workbook;
import org.apache.poi.xddf.usermodel.chart.ChartTypes;
import org.apache.poi.xddf.usermodel.chart.XDDFChartData;
import org.apache.poi.xddf.usermodel.chart.XDDFDataSource;
import org.apache.poi.xddf.usermodel.chart.XDDFDataSourcesFactory;
import org.apache.poi.xddf.usermodel.chart.XDDFNumericalDataSource;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFWorkbook;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFChart;
import org.apache.poi.xssf.usermodel.XSSFDrawing;

public class Chart {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        try (Workbook wb = new XSSFWorkbook(); FileOutputStream fileOut = new FileOutputStream("chart.xlsx");) {
            Sheet sheet = wb.createSheet("Sheet1");

            XSSFDrawing drawing = (XSSFDrawing)sheet.createDrawingPatriarch();
            XSSFChart chart = drawing.createChart(drawing.createAnchor(0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 12, 12));
    
            
            // --------------------->     Here we set the title
            chart.setTitleText("My chart title");
            // <---------------------

            
            XDDFDataSource<String> cat = XDDFDataSourcesFactory.fromArray(new String[]{"A","B","C","D"});
            XDDFNumericalDataSource<Double> val = XDDFDataSourcesFactory.fromArray(new Double[]{1d, 2d, 3d, 4d});

            XDDFChartData data = chart.createData(ChartTypes.PIE, null, null);
            data.setVaryColors(true);
            XDDFChartData.Series series = data.addSeries(cat, val);
            series.setTitle("Series", null);
            chart.plot(data);

            wb.write(fileOut);
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

I understand that XSSFChart.setTitleText("My chart title") was not available, when this question was asked.

Fred Campos · Accepted Answer · 2022-12-12 10:03:08Z

0

Using Apache Poi 3.7 (itself an older version), this works fine:

XSSFChart xchart = (XSSFChart) chart;
xchart.setTitleText("Your title");

answered Dec 12, 2022 at 10:03

Fred Campos

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