Chart Maker

Chart type should follow the question you are answering. Bar charts compare separate categories and are the safest default because the eye judges length accurately. Line charts imply continuity, so they belong to data ordered in time — using one for unordered categories suggests a trend that does not exist. Pie charts show parts of a whole and only work when the parts genuinely sum to something meaningful and there are few of them; past about six slices, people can no longer compare angles reliably and a bar chart communicates better. Because the output is SVG, text in the chart stays real text — searchable, selectable and sharp at any zoom.

Bar heights and line positions are scaled against a "nice" maximum — the value rounded up to the nearest 1, 2, 5 or 10 times a power of ten — so gridlines land on readable numbers. Pie slice angles are each value divided by the total, multiplied by 360 degrees.

This makes single-series charts only — grouped bars, stacked bars, multiple lines and secondary axes are out of scope, as are scatter plots and dual-axis combinations. Output is SVG rather than PNG, which is better for print and editing but needs converting if a tool you use accepts only bitmaps. Labels are drawn horizontally, so very long category names on a bar chart can crowd each other.

Five traffic sources totalling 20,050 visits produce a bar chart with gridlines at 0, 2,500, 5,000, 7,500 and 10,000, each bar labelled with its exact value.

1. Paste your data, one “label, value” pair per line.
2. Choose bar, line or pie.
3. Add a title and pick a colour.
4. Download the SVG, or copy the markup to inline it in a page.

• Using a line chart for categories that have no natural order.
• Putting ten or more slices in a pie chart.
• Including a thousands separator inside the number without a delimiter — put the value last.
• Mixing very large and very small values on one axis, hiding the small ones.

The Chart Maker turns pasted data into a clean bar, line or pie chart you can download as SVG. It reads “label, value” lines or spreadsheet tabs, works out sensible axis gridlines automatically, and reports the total, average, highest and lowest values alongside the chart.

Anyone who needs a quick chart for a report, slide or blog post without opening a spreadsheet.

• Downloads as SVG, so it stays sharp at any size and is editable later.
• Detects commas, semicolons and spreadsheet tabs automatically.
• Rounds the axis to sensible gridlines rather than ragged maximums.
• No watermark, no sign-up, and your data never leaves your browser.

• Charting survey results for a report.
• Visualising traffic or sales by channel.
• Making a quick graphic for a blog post or slide.
• Turning a small spreadsheet range into a picture.