When you import your experiment into FCS Express, your plots are displayed with the axes scale settings that are stored in the experiment file. You are not obligated to keep your plots with these axes scales. For example, the imported plot is displayed with 5 decades, however, you want it displayed with 4 decades. You can also change the scale between linear, logarithmic and biexponential. For a full discussion of these concepts, please see:

• How can I set FCS Express so my FCS 3.0 data looks the same as on biexponential as it did in the BD FACSDiva software?
• What is Biexponential and Hyperlog scaling?
• What is the best way to set FCS Express to display FCS 3.0 data from FACSDiva on a 4 decade log scale?

As part of the import process, FCS Express will guide you using our FACSDiVa import wizard. One of the wizard screens allows you to set up an FCS Express FACSDiVa configuration file. This is required because the FACSDiVa Experiment file does not contain information about the page size and where the page breaks should appear. For example, a FACSDiVa Experiment file only says that there are 3 plots laid out in a vertical column, but says nothing about whether the plots should all be on a single page, or one plot per page. Once you have set up the page size and page breaks for the FACSDiVa Experiment file, you can save this configuration for use again on other FACSDiVa Experiment files. Typically, you will only set up one configuration file and it use it over and over again, however, if you change the page setup in the DiVa software, you will be required to create a new FACSDiVa configuration file.

The above image shows the wizard screen for setting the FACSDiVa™ layout configuration. The Logical Page Size section allows you to configure how the FACSDiVa Experiment file will be divided when it is imported into FCS Express. It displays all the dot plots and histograms from the FACSDiVa Experiment, using mock diagrams to represent the appropriate plot. By clicking in the representation of the FACSDiVa Experiment file page, you can divide the Experiment into multiple pages. After the initial click, you will see a dotted vertical line which represents the right side of each layout page, and a horizontal dotted line, which represents the bottom of the layout page. If a plot is split across more than one page in the diagram, it will be placed on the layout page where its top-corner exists, however, it will not fit completely on the layout page. By default, the ratio of the page is locked, which means that as the width of the page increases, so does the height. The figure below shows a FACSDiVa Experiment with 3 plots that is divided into 3 layout pages.

When you export a FACSDiVa experiment file from DiVa Version 6 or earlier, the accompanying .fcs data files are given names that are not informative (123456.FCS). Therefore it is generally recommended to export the .fcs files separately from the experiment. However, to make it easier for you to work with these files, FCS Express allows you to view your FCS files tube name, or any other information that is stored in the FCS file header (i.e. Sample ID, acquisition date, etc.) in the header or footer of plots. The tube name keyword in data files generated by FACSDiVa files is "<Tube Name>" (without the quotes).