Chart syntax

The Chart syntax is a short way to write a chart as text. You write one row per line and separate the cells with a comma, a semicolon, a pipe or a tab. An optional first line names the chart type. You type it into the Quick Input, and its format id is chart-syntax.

AlphaPilot program

bar
Month | Online | Retail
Jan   | 42     | 30
Feb   | 48     | 28

The type line

A first line that holds only a chart type, such as bar, pie or a type registered with chartTypes, is the type line. Case and spaces around it do not matter.

Without a type line, the chart takes the type you pass to the command, such as the type option of insertChartFrom. Without one, it takes chart.defaultType.
The type line wins over the type option, so the text alone says what the chart becomes.
The type line stays in the text. editChartAsText writes it back as the first line, and setDiagramInputType rewrites it.

How the rows are read

Rule	How it reads
Delimiters	Comma, semicolon, pipe and tab, set with the `chart.delimiters` option
Header	The first row is the header when it holds no number outside the first column
`{H}`	In front of a cell, marks it as a header cell
Labels	The first column holds the labels
`{L}`	In front of a cell, marks it as a label
Empty cell	A missing value
Not a number	A cell that is not a number is kept as text
Quotes	A cell in double quotes may contain the delimiter
Lists	A leading bullet or number (`•`, `-`, `*`, `1.`) is ignored, so a pasted list reads as rows
Single column	Lines without any delimiter are one series of values, labeled 1, 2, 3 and so on

So Month | Sales is a header and Jan | 2 is a data row. For a header that holds numbers, such as Region | 2025 | 2026, put {H} in front of its cells.

Which delimiter splits

The first line that contains an allowed delimiter decides the delimiter for the whole text. On a line with several delimiters, a tab, a pipe or a semicolon wins over a comma. So Jan ; 1,5 splits at the semicolon and reads 1,5 as a number.

Numbers

With decimalSeparator: 'auto', 1.5 is read as 1.5, and so is 1,5 when the delimiter is not a comma.
Set decimalSeparator to '.' or ',' to fix the decimal separator.
Thousands separators are not read.

Errors

A quote that is opened and never closed is an error on its line, for example Line 3: A quote is opened and never closed.

In code

insertChartFrom, updateChartFrom and the tools for an AI model take the same text:

editor.commands.insertChartFrom({ format: 'chart-syntax', content: 'bar\nJan | 42\nFeb | 48' })

editor.storage.diagrams.read({ format: 'chart-syntax' }) writes a chart's data in the Chart syntax, with the delimiter it was typed with:

Delimiter	Written as
Pipe	`\|`
Tab	A bare tab
Any other	The delimiter, then a space

PreviouslyQuick Input

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