How to create a chart from a CSV file
Upload a CSV file to InstaCharts to instantly generate a chart from your data
Create and share charts
InstaCharts lets you create a chart from a CSV file and share it with your team in just a few steps.
TLDR: Try the demo or sign up for a free account!
Watch How To Video
Bart walks us through how to upload a csv file to InstaCharts, create a few charts, and share one.
1. Open InstaCharts
Login to your InstaCharts account if you plan on sharing your data or interactive chart with others. Use the demo to try InstaCharts without signing up, or if you don’t need to save and share your chart.
2. Upload your CSV file
From your workspace, click New, then New Sheet, and choose Upload a file. You can also drag and drop a file from your computer onto the workspace. Select a CSV file and an import preview window opens.
The preview shows the first 100 rows of the file, and each column header is color coded by the type InstaCharts detected: green for dates, blue for numbers, and pink for text. The options on the left side of the preview let you name the sheet, skip title rows above the data, choose whether the first row holds column names, import only some of the columns, and set the file encoding. Click Import when the preview looks right. Free accounts can import files up to 2MB and 500 rows per sheet, and paid plans raise the row limits.
Next to the Import button is a Generate AI charts checkbox. When it is checked, InstaCharts also builds three recommended charts as soon as the upload finishes, which uses 1 AI credit.
The CSV is processed, and a chart is instantly produced from its data. InstaCharts automatically analyzes and chooses column types and formatting for each column in the spreadsheet. The chart is instantly shown on the Chart tab.
For more information on the file upload process, check out our full guide on importing files.
View your processed data in the Full Dataset view of the Data Tab
On the Data tab, check that the spreadsheet was uploaded correctly. InstaCharts uses the first row as the column names by default, so a header row followed by a row of data for every record gives the best results.
InstaCharts uses the full dataset you upload to make a chart. To filter out certain data from appearing in the chart, you can set a column filter or a quick filter .
3. Edit your chart
Choose between 13 chart types (all chart types are recommended for the sample data!)
Click on the Chart tab to switch to the Chart view. A chart is automatically created based on your data, though it may not show exactly what you want yet.
There are two main settings to quickly change this chart:
Chart Type
The chart type can be switched to bar, stacked bar, grouped bar, line, grouped line, scatter plot, grouped scatter, area, grouped area, pie, radar, heatmap or mekko. The Chart Options panel adds variations such as horizontal bars, waterfall bars, donut and semi circle pies, and normalized stacked charts.
Some chart types will be marked with a star. The stars denote recommended chart types based on the data in your spreadsheet. For example, a scatterplot will be recommended if your data contains at least 2 numerical columns.
Axis Dropdowns
The x and y-axis can be selected from any column in the spreadsheet. If a chart type is selected that can handle multiple series (grouped line, stacked bar, grouped area) , the y-axis dropdown will turn into a series dropdown. Using the series dropdown, you can either drill down into your data further by selecting a breakdown column, or add another series to the chart.
Some choices in the axis dropdowns will be marked with a star. The star means this column is recommended for the axis based on the selected chart type. For example, date columns are recommended for the x-axis in a line chart. This will create a time series graph, and is one of the best charts to visualize changes over time.
Hover over the stars to learn more reasons why a column is recommended for a particular axis.
More Chart Ideas
Click Recommended in the left sidebar for more chart ideas. Recommended Charts are free suggestions that show the exact X-axis, Y-axis and breakdown columns used for each chart. AI Recommendations use 1 AI credit to suggest three charts, each with a title, subtitle and caption written for your data. Click Add Chart on any suggestion to add it to your sheet. A sheet can hold many charts that share the same data. See AI Chart Recommendations for details.
4. Further Customize the Chart
Once you have the chart type and axis figured out, the chart can be refined further via the left sidebar.
Chart Text
The x-axis, y-axis, legend title and chart title all auto update based on your selections. If you wish to override this text, open Chart Text in the left sidebar to make changes. Subtitles, captions, source links and locales can also be set from this panel. Axis titles, the legend and number formatting live in the Axes & Legend panel, and data labels are in the Labels panel.
Chart Appearance
The chart’s width and height can be changed in the Size & Style panel. You can also pick a chart theme (such as Classic, Midnight, Broadsheet or Financial Light), change the color scheme and fonts, and adjust the grid and axis styles from this panel.
Limit Items
Too many items appearing in the chart? New charts start with Auto Limit turned on, which keeps the 50 largest items and groups the rest into an All Others category. To choose your own number, turn Auto Limit off in the Data panel and use Limit Top Items. For a step by step example, see how to create a Top N chart.
Filter Data
Want to restrict the data that appears in the chart? Click on the data tab and apply multiple filters per column. There is also a quick filter in the main toolbar that will filter all columns by the search term.
Annotations
Open the Annotate panel to add text callouts and trend lines (average, median, custom value or linear regression) to the chart.
5. Export & Share
Use the Export dialog (located on the main toolbar) to download your chart as an image file (.png, .jpg, .svg, .webp or .pdf) or as a PowerPoint slide. You can also use the Export dialog to download chart data to a CSV, excel, TSV or JSON file.
Share charts through the Share & Templates dialog, also located on the main toolbar (sharing is an accounts only feature). You can share an interactive copy of the chart through a public link, or with specific users on paid plans. Shared charts can also be embedded in a website with an embed URL or embed tag, and a shared chart image updates automatically when the chart changes. Charts on the free plan include an InstaCharts watermark, and paid plans remove it.
Keep the chart up to date
When you receive a newer version of the CSV, right click the sheet in your workspace and choose Update Data. You can overwrite the sheet, add rows to it, or add columns to it, and your charts, shares and dashboards keep working. See Update Sheet Data for the steps.
Give it a try
InstaCharts helps you create and share professional-looking charts without writing any code. Sign up for a free account today!
