Igor Quick Reference

This page is intended to be a resource for the beginning and intermediate Igor user to quickly find help and tips about common tasks in Igor. Much of the information on this page is taken from the Igor "Getting Started" Introduction and Guided Tour, but is organized by topic so that the information is easy to find. Users of this page should also search (ctrl+f) for terms in case what they're looking for isn't found in the topic they expect.

This page was started by Ingrid Ulbrich.

Waves

Waves are vectors (arrays) in which data is stored. Point number counts from 0 (i.e., MyWave[0] is the first element of the wave).

Waves have inherent x values that are by default equal to the point number. If you display a wave, it is automatically plotted versus the x value (0, 1, 2, etc.). It is possible to change the inherent wave scaling (see setScale), or you can plot a y-wave versus an x-wave.

Helpful Wave Functions

• make /O /N=
  • Data -> Make Waves...

• duplicate /O
  • Data -> Duplicate Waves...

• rename
  • Data -> Rename
  • when the wave is in a table, right-click and choose Reanme

• setScale
  • Data -> Change Wave Scaling...

Putting Data in Waves

In a table

1. First you need to view the wave in a table.
   • If the wave exists
     • double-click on it in the Data Browser to view it in a table
     • single-click on it in the Data Browser, then right click and select "Edit"
     • from the pulldown menus, choose Window -> New Table and select the wave(s) from the dialog window
   • If the wave doesn't exist
     • make the wave from the command line
     • Make a new table (from the pulldown menus, choose Window -> New Table and don't choose any existing waves). You can rename the waves later.
2. Now you can type values directly into the table
   • Note that you are editing the only copy of the wave.
   • Note that Igor can only undo 1 action (it doesn't remember more than 1 action).
   • Note that if you paste into the table, you might insert points instead of overwriting existing data.

Graphs

Helpful Graph Functions

• display
• appendToGraph
• legend

Variables

Helpful Variable Functions

• NVAR
• NVAR_exists