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Charts from data

CSV to horizontal bar chart online

The same comparison as a vertical bar chart, rotated ninety degrees — and that rotation solves the single most common problem with bars: category names. "Organic search" written sideways under a column is unreadable; written along a horizontal bar it is just a label.

Your data never leaves this device

Your data

Paste a table straight from Excel or Google Sheets, or drop a CSV file. Nothing is uploaded anywhere — the whole calculation runs inside this browser tab.

CSV, TSV or plain text. Files saved in windows-1251 are detected and re-read automatically, so Cyrillic headers do not turn into garbage.

Parsing options

Columns

Result

The drawing library is downloaded only when you press the button, and only on this page.

This page has no server side at all. The table you paste is parsed by JavaScript inside your own browser, the chart is drawn on a canvas element on your machine, and the export file is assembled locally. Nothing is uploaded, stored or written to any log. You can disconnect from the network after the page has loaded and everything will still work — which is the simplest way to verify the claim yourself.

Facts and limits of this method

Best for Rankings, survey answers, and any list with long category names
Label space A full line per category instead of the width of one column
Comfortable range 3 to 40 categories — roughly double what vertical bars tolerate
Zero baseline Mandatory, same as vertical bars
Reading order Top to bottom, which matches how people read lists
Output PNG at 2× scale, plus CSV, JSON and Markdown

When it misleads you

How it is calculated

The chart is a bar chart with the index axis flipped to the vertical: labels run down the left edge, values extend to the right. Everything else — parsing, zero baseline, colour, handling of empty cells — behaves exactly as in the vertical version.

Bars are drawn in the order your rows arrive. Because this layout reads as a ranking, sorting your data by value before pasting is almost always the right move; the tool deliberately does not reorder anything behind your back.

The horizontal axis starts at zero and cannot be moved. A truncated axis on a ranking chart is particularly dishonest: it turns "these five options are all roughly equal" into "the first option dominates".

Maximum bar thickness is capped, so a chart with three categories does not stretch into three thick slabs. Long labels are given the space they need on the left rather than being truncated with an ellipsis.

Questions and answers

When should I pick horizontal over vertical bars?

Whenever your category names are longer than about ten characters, or whenever you have more than fifteen categories. Those two conditions cover most survey results and most rankings.

Should I sort the bars?

Almost always, yes — by value, descending. A horizontal bar chart reads as a ranking whether or not you meant it to, so an arbitrary order actively misleads. Sort in your spreadsheet before pasting.

Can I use this for monthly data?

You can, but you should not. Time belongs on a horizontal axis running left to right. Use the line chart or the vertical bar chart instead.

My longest label is cut off.

Shorten it in the pasted table. Chart labels are not the place for a full sentence — put the detail in the surrounding text, not inside the picture.

Is the file uploaded?

No. Parsing, drawing and export all happen inside your browser; there is no server behind the page.

The opposite tool

Need it the other way round? CSV to bar chart Compare categories as vertical columns

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