Charts in your notes, drawn from a database table

A table full of numbers answers questions, but a picture answers them faster: where the money goes, which stage holds most of the work, how a month compares with the last one. Barside adds charts in your notes. A chart draws a database table in the same note, as bars, a line or a donut, and it changes as soon as the table does. Type /chart under a table to start. Barside is a free desktop app for Windows, Linux and Mac. Your charts are saved with your notes, on your own computer.

Why a chart in a note

• The numbers stay with the story. A budget note holds the plan, the table of costs and a chart of where the money goes.
• Always up to date. There is no picture to export again: change a row and the chart follows.
• No separate app. There is nothing to set up and no account: add a chart where you are writing.

Add a chart

1. Put your cursor under a database table.
2. Type / and choose Chart, or press Insert a chart under More formatting in the note toolbar.
3. Give the chart a title at the top, or keep the one Barside writes, like Sum of Cost by Kind.

The chart draws the nearest table above it. It groups the rows by the table's first Choice column (or its first column) and adds up its first Number column (or counts the rows).

In a note with no table, Barside adds a small Chart data table first, with a Label and a Value column and three empty rows, and the chart under it. Fill in the rows and the chart draws them.

Choose what the chart shows

Press the Chart settings button (the sliders) above the chart:

• Type. Bars, Line or Donut.
• Table. Any database table in the same note.
• Group by. The column that makes the groups, like Status, Category or Date.
• Value. Count of rows, or the Sum, Average, Min or Max of a Number column.
• Dates, when you group by a Date column: By day, By month or By year. Barside picks days when all the dates fall in one month, months when they span up to three years, and years after that.

Groups keep a sensible order. Choices keep the order of their options, dates and numbers go in order, a Checkbox column shows Yes and No, and words go from the largest value to the smallest. A row with several choices counts once in each of them.

Which chart to pick

When there is only one value to show, like after a filter that keeps one group, the chart shows it as one big number.

Read the numbers

• Point at a bar, a point or a slice to see its group and value. The Tab key moves to each one, and on a line the arrow keys move along it.
• The table button above the chart shows its numbers as a table, and a second press brings the chart back.
• Values look like their column. A US dollar column gives $1,800.00, and a percent column gives 25%.

The chart follows the table

A new row, an edited cell or a deleted row shows in the chart at once. Filters on the table count too: the chart counts only the rows that show, so a filter for one month charts that month. The table's sort does not change the chart.

Details that matter

• Many groups. Bars of words show the 12 largest groups and a donut the 6 largest. The rest go into one Other group, so nothing is left out. Bars and lines of dates or numbers show up to 100 points.
• Colors. One chart, one color, except the donut, which gives each slice its own color and a legend with each value and share. The colors were picked to stay apart for the common kinds of color blindness, in light and dark themes.
• Undo. Each change to a chart, like its type or its value, is its own step for Undo (Ctrl+Z, or Cmd+Z on a Mac).
• Copies. A copy of a table pasted into the note is a new table, and the chart keeps drawing the first one. A chart pasted into another note asks which table of that note to draw.
• Search. The search box in All notes and the search bar find a note by a chart's title and values.
• Backups and sync. Charts are part of their note, so ZIP backups include them, and with Barside Plus, cloud sync keeps them on all your computers.
• Systems. Charts work the same on Windows 10 and 11, on Linux and on Mac.

A budget chart, step by step

1. In a note, type /database and name the table Spending.
2. Rename the columns to Item, Kind and Date, and add a Cost column with the type Number and the format US dollar.
3. Kind is a Choice column (it was Status). Give it the options Food, Rent and Fun, and fill in a few rows.
4. Under the table, type /chart. The chart shows the sum of Cost for each Kind, as bars.
5. Open Chart settings and pick Donut to see each kind as a share of the whole.
6. Pick Date under Group by and Line as the type to see the spending over time, by day or by month.
7. Add a filter on the table, like Kind is Food, to chart only the food. Remove it to see everything again.

Every change in these steps is saved with the note as you go, and each one can be undone.

Examples

• A household budget has a table of costs with a Kind choice and a donut of where the money goes.
• A small shop charts the sum of its orders by month as a line, next to the orders table.
• A team lead counts the open tasks by stage as bars, in the meeting note beside a kanban board.
• A reader charts books finished by year from a reading log.

Privacy

A chart is saved inside its note, in your library on your computer, with its table. Nothing is uploaded unless you turn on cloud sync or cloud backup with Barside Plus, or share the note to a Space. Your AI reads a chart only when you ask it about your notes, with the AI you connect. Read the privacy guide.

How it compares

Notion shows charts as a view of a database, and spreadsheets chart any range of cells with many more chart types. Barside's charts cover the everyday part, bars, a line and a donut of a table in your note, in a desktop app that keeps your notes on your computer. If you are choosing an app, read the Notion alternative guide and the list of the best note-taking apps.

Works well with