Fancy Charts

Charts that live where your notes do.

Why

I really missed a modern chart plugin in Obsidian that would allow me to have self-contained blocks so I can use Obsidian to visualize data — and at the same time fit well with my AI flow. Fancy Charts not only produces clean visualizations, it also provides a clean format for data. Inside each block, the data lives as a plain Markdown table: easy to read and edit even without the plugin installed.

Features

• Charts embedded directly in notes — render inline alongside your content, no separate view required
• Eight chart types — bar, line, pie, scatter, area, funnel, heatmap, sankey
• Simple mode — a short YAML config and a plain Markdown table is all you need; the plugin builds the chart automatically
• Advanced mode — pass a raw ECharts option object for full control over every chart property
• Chart builder modal — insert or edit charts through a form with a live preview; no hand-editing the block unless you want to
• Human-readable format — the data is a standard Markdown table; legible in any text editor, even without the plugin installed
• Dark and light mode — follows Obsidian's active theme automatically

Installation

From within Obsidian:

1. Go to Settings → Community plugins → Browse
2. Search for Fancy Charts
3. Click Install, then Enable

Usage

Insert a chart

• Run Fancy Charts: Insert chart from the command palette, or
• Click the Fancy Charts ribbon icon

The chart builder modal opens. Choose a chart type, fill in the data table, set an optional title and axis, then click Insert. A fancy-charts block is written into your note and rendered immediately.

Edit a chart

Click the edit button that appears on a rendered chart to reopen the modal pre-filled with the existing data. Make your changes, then click Update.

Chart types

Type	Description
bar	Vertical bar chart; one bar series per Y-axis column
line	Line chart; one line per Y-axis column
pie	Pie chart; one column for slice labels, one for values
scatter	Scatter plot; X column provides X values, first Y column provides Y values
area	Stacked area chart; one filled series per Y-axis column
funnel	Funnel chart; stage names and values
heatmap	Heatmap; X category, Y category, numeric value — colour scale auto-computed
sankey	Sankey flow diagram; source node, target node, flow value — nodes derived automatically

The data format

Charts are stored as a fenced fancy-charts code block in two modes:

Simple mode — a YAML config followed by a Markdown table:

```fancy-charts
---
type: bar
title: Quarterly Revenue
xAxis: quarter
yAxis:
  - revenue
  - costs
---
| quarter | revenue | costs |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Q1 | 120 | 80 |
| Q2 | 200 | 110 |
| Q3 | 150 | 90 |
| Q4 | 180 | 100 |
```

Advanced mode — a raw ECharts option object for full control:

```fancy-charts
echarts:
  xAxis:
    type: category
    data: [Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4]
  yAxis:
    type: value
  series:
    - type: bar
      data: [120, 200, 150, 180]
      name: Revenue
```

The full schema is documented in docs/schema.md.

Because the data is a standard Markdown table, a chart block is still readable — as a table, without the interactive chart — in any Markdown viewer, even without the plugin.

Feature Requests and Issues

If there's a gap you'd like prioritized, open an issue — this roadmap takes real usage and feedback into account.

License

MIT — Copyright (c) 2026 Astuten.io Ltd

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