Formatting Data for Import

The cleaner your data, the better InstaCharts can detect column types and build a chart for you. You don’t need to summarize or reshape anything first; just follow a few simple rules so your spreadsheet imports the way you expect.

This guide applies to every import method: uploading a file, connecting a Google Sheet, or pasting in text.

Use rows and columns

InstaCharts reads tabular data: a simple grid where every column is a field and every row is a record.

Good: a plain grid of rows and columns

Product	Region	Units	Revenue
Notebook	East	12	240
Notebook	West	8	160
Pen	East	40	80
Pen	West	25	50

Each row describes one thing, and each column holds one piece of information about it.

Columns run top to bottom

Every column is a single field, with its values stacked vertically underneath the column name. A common mistake is laying data out horizontally, putting field names down the left side and spreading each record across a row.

Avoid: fields laid out horizontally

Name	Alice	Bob	Carol
Age	30	25	35
City	NYC	LA	SF

Good: the same data with fields as vertical columns

Name	Age	City
Alice	30	NYC
Bob	25	LA
Carol	35	SF

Put column names in the first row

The first row of your sheet should be the column names. InstaCharts uses that row as the header, and each name becomes the Column Name you’ll see throughout the app: in the data table, the chart axes, filters, and legends.

Good: clear names in the first row

Month	Signups	Revenue
January	320	4800
February	410	6150

Avoid: no header row (data starts immediately)

January	320	4800
February	410	6150

Without a header row, your columns get generic names like A, B, and C, which make charts harder to read.

Note

Give every column a short, descriptive name. These names are hard to miss; they show up on your chart. You can always rename a column later from its header menu on the Data tab.

If your sheet genuinely has no header row, uncheck Use first row as header in the import options so your first record is kept as data instead of being turned into column names.

Keep one value type per column

Each column should contain a single type of value: all numbers, all dates, or all text. InstaCharts inspects the values in each column to detect its column type. If a number column contains stray text, the whole column is treated as text and can no longer be plotted on a number axis or aggregated.

Avoid: a number column with text mixed in

Salesperson	Deals
Alice	12
Bob	8
Carol	pending
Dan	15

Good: numbers only, empty where unknown

Salesperson	Deals
Alice	12
Bob	8
Carol
Dan	15

Caution

Watch out for notes like N/A, TBD, or ~100 inside otherwise-numeric columns. A single text value is enough to turn the entire column into text. Leave the cell blank instead.

One set of data per sheet

Keep just one table per sheet. Don’t place a second table below or beside the first, and don’t add totals rows, titles, or notes above the data; InstaCharts reads the sheet as one continuous grid.

Avoid: two tables stacked in one sheet

Month	Sales
Jan	500
Feb	650
Region	Sales
East	700
West	450

Instead, split the tables into separate sheets (or separate tabs in an Excel/Google workbook; each tab imports as its own sheet).

Tip

If your file has extra rows above the data, the Find first data row option in the import preview can skip them for you. For anything more complex, split the tables before importing.

You don’t need to summarize your data

Import your raw, row-level data; you do not need to total or group it first. InstaCharts aggregates automatically when it builds the chart, so repeated categories are expected and fine.

This raw table is perfectly good to import:

Region	Sales
East	100
East	150
West	200
East	50
West	175

You don’t have to add up the three “East” rows yourself. When you chart Region against Sales, InstaCharts sums them into a single East bar for you, and you can switch the summary to average, count, min, or max at any time.

Note

Learn more about how values are combined in the Aggregation guide.

JSON objects are split apart for you

If a column holds JSON objects, InstaCharts recognizes them and can split each property into its own column, so the individual values become chartable.

A column with JSON object values:

Order	Customer
1001	{"city":"Austin","state":"TX","vip":true}
1002	{"city":"Reno","state":"NV","vip":false}

Using Split Object Column from the column’s header menu turns that one column into three:

Order	Customer.city	Customer.state	Customer.vip
1001	Austin	TX	true
1002	Reno	NV	false

The same applies to lists: a value like [1,2,3] is imported as an Array and shown correctly in the data table. See Transform Data for more on reshaping columns after import.

Import options that fix a messy sheet

You do not always have to edit the source file. The import preview window has options that handle the most common layout problems for you, and the preview updates as soon as you change one.

Option	What it fixes
Find first data row	Titles, notes, and blank rows sitting above the table, which stop numbers and dates from being detected
Use first row as header	A sheet with no header row, or one where the wrong row was used for the column names
Choose columns to import	Wide spreadsheets with columns you don’t need in the chart
File encoding	Accented or non-Latin characters showing up as garbled text
Pages	A workbook where only some of the tabs should be imported

See Import Options for how each one works.

Check the colors in the preview

Before you import, the preview grid color codes each column header by the type InstaCharts detected: green for dates, blue for numbers, and pink for text. This is the quickest way to confirm your data was structured correctly.

A column you expect to be numeric showing up pink means a text value slipped into it, which is the problem described in Keep one value type per column. Clean the column in your source file and import again.

Column types

InstaCharts detects a type for every column based on the values it contains. The type controls how a column is displayed, whether it can be plotted on a number or date axis, and how it can be aggregated. Types are detected automatically, and most can be overridden from a column’s header menu on the Data tab. See Column Types for which types are detected only and can’t be manually forced.

Text and categories

Categorical values become the labels and groups in your charts.

Type	Use it for	Example
Text	Names, labels, and general categories	North America
Boolean	Yes/no or true/false values	true
Integer Category	Whole numbers treated as categories instead of a number axis	1, 2, 3
Id	Identifier values that label a record	1024
UUID	Software-generated unique identifiers, treated as text	9f1c2a7e…

Numbers

Numeric columns can be plotted on a value axis and aggregated (sum, average, count, and more). InstaCharts strips formatting like symbols and separators so the values can be charted.

Type	Use it for	Example
Integer	Whole numbers	42
Big Integer	Whole numbers greater than one billion	5000000000
Decimal	Numbers with a fractional part	3.14
Percent	Percentages	27%
Currency	Money values	$1,250.00
Year	A year, displayed without thousands separators	2026

Tip

Formatting such as currency symbols and percent signs can be re-applied to the chart later through Number Formatting; it’s only removed so the numbers can be plotted.

Dates and time

Date columns unlock time-based charts and can be split into parts like month or year.

Type	Use it for	Example
Date	Calendar dates (American MM/DD/YYYY)	07/08/2026
Timestamp	Dates with time, in ISO-8601 format	2026-07-08T15:25:18.848Z

Structured values

These columns hold more than one value per cell. InstaCharts parses them so they display correctly, and they can be broken apart into simpler columns.

Type	Use it for	Example
Object	A JSON object in a single cell	{"a":1,"b":2}
Array	A list of values in a single cell	[1,2,3,4,5]
Multiple Choice	Several comma-separated selections in one cell (surveys)	chrome, firefox, safari

Related

• Import File: upload a CSV, Excel, or JSON file
• Import from Google Sheets: connect a live spreadsheet
• Column Types: how types are detected and how to change them
• Transform Data: pivot, unpivot, split, and clean up your data
• Aggregation: summarize the values in a column