Chart maker

How it works

Making a simple chart usually means opening a spreadsheet, formatting a range, inserting a chart, then fighting its default styling. For a single chart to drop into a document or a slide, pasting two columns is considerably faster.

The data it expects

One row per bar or slice: a label, a comma, then a number. A header row is detected automatically and used for the axis label rather than being plotted. Numbers with thousands separators are understood.

Choosing a chart type

Bars run horizontally and suit long category names. Columns run vertically and suit dates or short labels. Lines are for something changing over time and imply the order is meaningful. Pie and doughnut show parts of a whole — and stop being readable past about six slices, which is the most common charting mistake there is.

What it deliberately does not do

No 3D, no gradients, no drop shadows. Those make charts harder to read rather than easier: a 3D pie distorts the very proportions it exists to show.

The output

A 1200 × 720 PNG, which drops cleanly into a slide or a document. Values are labelled on the chart by default so nobody has to read them off an axis.