Updates, fixes, and thoughts from the developer
← Back to FigraFigra is actively being developed and tested. The plan is to submit it to Microsoft AppSource so it can be installed directly from Excel without any manual setup. Until then, it can be used by sideloading the manifest file — see the home page for instructions.
If you are testing Figra and find bugs or have suggestions, please use the support form. Early feedback is very helpful.
Two new chart types have been added: a 4-parameter logistic (4PL) model for IC50 dose-response curves, and GO (Gene Ontology) enrichment bar plots. These were among the most requested chart types from early testers.
The IC50 fitting uses nonlinear least squares with automatic fallback to a 3PL model if the 4PL fit fails. Results including the IC50 value, Hill slope, and confidence intervals can be exported to a new Excel sheet.
As someone working in cancer biology in a wet lab, most of my figures are pretty simple. Using specialized graphing software often doesn't make sense.
Not because those tools are bad. They're powerful. They offer many advanced features through paid subscriptions. But most routine figures — real-time RT-PCR results, colony formation assays, tumor volume curves — are straightforward.
In dry analysis work, I'm comfortable using R or Python. But most routine figures are still created with dedicated software.
The data lives in Excel.
The licensed software lives on a lab desktop.
My own laptop doesn't always have access.
What software can do, R can also do.
But the data is still sitting in Excel.
And I kept asking myself: why am I copying data back and forth just to make a simple plot? Most of the time, the data is already clean and ready. The only missing step is the visualization.
Figra started as a small personal script that grew over time. If you're a researcher who lives between Excel and visualization software, I hope this makes your workflow a little smoother. — Yoshiaki Sato