MH Qualitative Analysis Chromatogram Scaling

Question

I am working with GC-FID (FAME analysis) data in Qualitative Analysis (customer has MS on system as well). In Quantitative Analysis, I can scale the chromatography to the largest peak after a certain time. The ignores the solvent peak from the display, and scales the analyte peaks according. 
 Is there a similar setting in Qualitative Analysis? It is annoying to have to manually scale the chromatogram after any auto scale event. 
 Thanks in advance, David

howard_sanford · Answer

Hello epsiloncomp , 
 In Qual there are not too many options to help when working with data that has solvent peaks. Workflow options are limited for GC data and the workflow time range limits were not applied to GC data in versions before Qual 12.0. Even this only prevents the integration of the solvent peak and doesn't help with automatically limiting the display range. When working with GC data it is best to enable the option to Autoscale Y-axis during Zoom and try to use only the x-axis autoscale or the unzoom option, if available. 
 
 Depending on your workflow and what you need to do in Qual you may be able to use Unknowns Analysis, if you just need to review RTs and area/height counts. This will give you the ability to autoscale the chromatogram and limit the time range to integrate, though only the Agile and Agile2 integrators are available and there is not manual integration as in qual or quant. 
 You would create the UA file as normal, and then set up the method to perform TIC analysis using the GC signal. 
 
 Remove any Libraries from the Library Search tab and on the Deconvolution tab choose one RT window size factor. This will simplify the Advanced method edit, since even when doing TIC analysis there are multiple method lines created if multiple RT window size factors are used. 
 
 Then go into Advanced... mode, and on the Deconvolution tab, which should really just be called the Find by algorithm tab, you can set your Chromatogram Range Low and High to avoid the solvent peak. 
 
 Apply this to all samples, then you can set the Chromatogram to scale to the largest peak after a given time by right clicking in the Chromatogram and choosing Properties... 
 
 Analyze the samples and choose to view All. You can adjust your columns to just show RT, area, height, etc. as desired.