Paste labels and values, get a clean chart with value labels you can download
| Question | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Compare categories? | Bar chart | Length is the easiest quantity to judge |
| Show change over time? | Line chart | Position along a continuous axis encodes trend |
| Parts of one whole? | Stacked bar (or pie, sparingly) | Segments sum to 100% of one total |
| Distribution shape? | Histogram | Bars, but the x-axis is binned numbers |
| Correlation of two measures? | Scatter plot | Points show the relationship, not totals |
Paste your data as label-value pairs, one per line, and the chart renders instantly with value labels on every bar, a zero-based axis, and light gridlines. Sorting, orientation, color, and the title are one click each. The download is an SVG, so it stays sharp when you drop it into a slide, doc, or website.
Keep labels short enough to read at a glance, and prefer five to ten bars; past a dozen, flip to horizontal and sort descending so the ranking carries the story. Negative values plot below the baseline automatically. If your numbers carry units people know (%, $K), put them in the labels once rather than on every bar.
The default data is a regional revenue comparison: five regions, values from $205K to $468K. With input order the chart shows geography; switch to descending and the same data becomes a ranking, West first, Southwest last, with the value labels making the gap between the top two ($56K) obvious at a glance. Same numbers, different question answered.
Use bars when you're comparing categories and a line when you're showing a trend over a continuous sequence, usually time. Months as categories and revenue by region are bar chart work; stock price by minute is line chart work. A quick test: if connecting the points in between your categories would be meaningless, don't use a line.
Vertical is the default and reads fastest for short labels and few categories. Horizontal wins when labels are long or there are many categories, because names stay readable down the left edge instead of getting cramped or rotated under the axis.
Yes, for bar charts. Bars encode value by length, and chopping the axis changes the lengths, exaggerating small differences into dramatic ones. Truncated axes are only defensible on line charts, where position, not length, carries the value. If a zero baseline makes your differences invisible, that's the chart telling you the differences are small.
Around 12 to 15 on one chart before readers stop comparing and start skimming. Past that, sort descending and consider showing only the top N plus an everything-else bar, or split into small multiples. Sorting alone does a lot of work: sorted bars turn a wall of data into a ranking.