I am using Nick Cox's example code to produce a 'paired plot with names' as in Dr. Cox's "Speaking Stata Graphics" pp 267-271 (sjs (2009) 9, No 4, pp 621-639) example.
I have 2 continuous measures, retain4 and gcsi, sorted on rank of retain4. My "name" column identifier is 'idstring'. The only modification I made to the example code besides variable names was to reduce 'left" to 0.2.
My questions are:
  • I would like to reduce the size of the 'gcsi' and 'retain4' values displayed in the 2 vertical columns on the figure.
  • I would like to change the colors of each variable's values displayed, and the lines connecting the 2 variables.
  • I am not getting the expected column for the 'Name'. variable. Instead my 'Name' column displays far left of the retain4 (1st variable ranked) and appears to be
I have tried the size and color two-way graph options but am but not successfully.
I am unsure what the issue is with the Name column - is displays very far left of the 1st variable column, and appears to be printing vertically.

Here is my code:
#delimit;
twoway pcspike rank1 one rank2 two,
xla(none) xsc(noline r(0 2.3)) xtitle("") ysc(r(-1 .) reverse off) yla( , nogrid) ||
scatter rank1 one, mla (retain4_rd) mlabpos(9) ms(none) ||
scatter rank2 two, mla(gcsi_rd) mlabpos(3) ms(none) ||
scatter rank1 left, mla(idstring) mlabpos(3) ms(none) text(-0.5 1 "Bl % retention", size(vsmall))
text(-0.5 2 "GCSI severity", size(vsmall))
legend(off) graphregion(color(white))
;

Thank you for your help.