saving Manipulate data inside a notebook

Question

I want to send a few Manipulate Plots and regular plots to my advisor in a notebook. I typically Import data into my notebook to generate plots but when I open my file on a new computer, the regular Plots stay but the Manipulate ones are dead, until I Import the data again. Is there any way I can keep the data inside the notebook so when he "enables dynamic" to open the notebook on his computer, that the Manipulate plots become active, just the way the data in regular plots are not lost ?

Answer 1

SaveDefinitions would work for you I guess.

Try the below code. Execute, then save the notebook it is in. Kill the kernel with Quit[] and reopen the notebook. Content is still there and is manipulable without re-executing.

f = ExampleData[{"Text", "GettysburgAddress"}];

Manipulate[
 ListPlot[(StringLength /@ StringSplit[f])[[;; ;; i]]],
 {i, 1, 5, 1},
 SaveDefinitions -> True
 ]

Answer 2

You could use the Initialization option of Manipulate.

Manipulate[DateListPlot[data[[1 ;; k]],
  Filling -> Axis, PlotRange -> {0, 40}],
  {{k, 10}, 1, Length[data], 1},
  Initialization :> (data = FinancialData["FB", All])]

Alternatively, you could store the data in a separate initialization cell. That is create a cell like so:

Manipulate[DateListPlot[data[[1 ;; k]],
  Filling -> Axis, PlotRange -> {0, 40}],
  {{k, 10}, 1, Length[data], 1}]

And create (anywhere in the notebook) a separate initialization cell like so:

data = FinancialData["FB", All]

Note that this initialization could contain the pre-downloaded data, rather than an import type command. The important issue is that it's cell properties be set to be an initialization cell.