Grapher: An OS X Secret Gem

Grapher LogoOne thing we all love about OS X is the great built in software. iLife, Safari, even Preview. But one lovely app that no-one ever seems to mention is Grapher. It lurks in the depths of the Utilities folder, and is a brilliant app for anyone who is doing math at any level.

Grapher was re-introduced to OS X in 10.4 after an absence since OS 9, when it was called Graphing Calculator. This little app has come a long way since then, and now we have an incredibly simple program for making beautiful graphs. Simply enter whatever formula you want graphed in the white bar at the top, and it draws graphs that can be exported as TIFF, PDF, EPS or JPEG.

2D Graph

But 2D graphs are boring! The really cool stuff is 3D, when you get into the more complicated formulas. No, I’m not rocking the super-advanced math, so I have no clue how the math works in the below screen shot, but it is a Torus Knot. Thankfully, some programmer at Apple does know their stuff, and has helpfully included a list of nifty 2D and 3D graphs building equations.

3D Graph

Using all the fancy technologies built into OS X, Grapher is a very pretty app and makes a great demo for showing your PC friends what your computer can do. It doesn’t matter if you only know graphs as “hey, look at all the lines”, or you are a genius and know how to make practical use of the 3D graphs, Grapher really does its job well.

Grapher is not available for download, as it is bundled with OS X 10.4. Look in your Applications folder for ‘Utilities’.

Comments

16 Responses to “Grapher: An OS X Secret Gem”

  1. julian on May 18th, 2007 3:46 pm

    kewl i was looking for a little app like this to graph equations and parabolas.Thx good mention!:)

  2. Herkamer Roenski on May 18th, 2007 4:50 pm

    Grapher is usually forgotten, and thats too bad. It has gotten me through quite a few homework problems. Grapher is one of the little things in OS X that make me love Macs.

  3. Ron on May 18th, 2007 5:47 pm

    Grapher is unrelated to Graphing Calculator. The Mac OS X release of the original Graphing Calculator for Macintosh is available here: http://www.PacificT.com/FreeStuff.html. Try the Demo menu to see what it can do.

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  5. alej744 on May 22nd, 2007 6:17 pm

    Shut the function up, you son of a hyperbola

  6. Unknown on December 11th, 2008 10:47 am

    Damn,we surounded by eggheads. HAHAHA!

  7. al lee on January 4th, 2009 3:32 pm

    grapher is grrreat. too bad few people knows much of it. theres no manual found anywhere. even the apple stores 1 to 1 training do not support that .can any body help me out pleeeease???

  8. al lee on January 4th, 2009 3:58 pm

    in the apple store 1 to 1 ,i was told they dont support grapher which already comes with all apple computers for free,.and in the past 3-4 years ,it happened that i am the only one who is asking about it .for such a brilliant application, its totally unimaginable.can anybody within or outside of the universe help?user-manual,or…?

  9. thom phillabaum on February 17th, 2009 1:05 am

    http://guides.macrumors.com/Grapher

    That is the closest thing to a manual I have found. It really is a shame this great program doesn’t have some information about how to use it effectively.

  10. europium on November 16th, 2009 9:20 pm

    One very frustrating aspect of Grapher (for me, at any rate) is the difficulty of assigning a particular color to a particular graph in order to distinguish between multiple graphs on the same sheet.

    Assigning colors under Grapher is counterintuitive and, quite honestly, a total crap-shoot. Grapher greatly complicates a task that ordinarily should be as simple and straightforward as selecting a font color, for example. For the life of me I cannot imagine what the programmer could possibly have been thinking when designing this particular piece of the program.

  11. weeds on April 26th, 2010 11:43 am

    http://guides.macrumors.com/Grapher

    That is the closest thing to a manual I have found. It really is a shame this great program doesn't have some information about how to use it effectively.

  12. Johels on November 4th, 2010 8:54 am

    Hot damn i just bought an app for $25 to do exactly the same thing, I wish i would have know about it earlier!

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  14. Miguel Alvarez on March 24th, 2011 5:25 pm

    The closest to a manual is actually navigating through the application help.
    Just click on help.

  15. imashel on September 3rd, 2012 1:58 am

    At my school you can be considered ‘cool’ if you can make interesting things with grapher. This looks like just the thing for me, but even though I copy this equation exactly it still says there is an error in the equation. Please help.

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