Dear Bertram,
First, as far as applying the following my method, it is much easier to use more recent version than your Origin 8.
Second, if you consider to customize specific line connection, you may be better off by using regular line plots
rather than line series because line series doesn't provide a way to customize individual line segment.
If you can use a recent version of Origin, please follow the steps below:1) Organize your worksheet like the sample screenshot below. That is, each patient occupies single column
with two rows - Before and After. Enter the PatID in the Longname of the column.
2) Highlight data columns all patients' columns, and make a Line+Symbol plot.
3) In the Plot Details dialog for plots, check the "Independent" check box in the Group tab; For each dataset,
turn ON the "Enable" check box in the Label tab. Set the "Label From" to "Custom", and enter the format string,
e.g., "%(col(D)[L]$)" for the plot dataset D.
4) Customize the line or symbol of any specific line plot of your choice.
In Origin 8, there are no mechanism to add the label from the Plot Details dialog as in step 3, it is much less controllable.
You need to add Label datasets, and assign them to the plots by Plot Setup dialog.
Hope this helps.
--Hideo Fujii
OriginLab