PlotSet LogoPlotSet
All chart types

Table Maker

Turn a spreadsheet into a searchable, sortable table your readers can actually use. Upload a CSV or Excel file, style the columns, and publish an interactive table you can embed anywhere — free.

Create a Table — freeSee the gallery

What is a Table?

A table is a chart that refuses to summarise. Every value is printed rather than encoded, which makes it the only visualisation where a reader can look up one specific number and trust it exactly. That sounds unambitious until you notice how often people scroll past a beautiful chart looking for the row that concerns them. A good table earns its place by doing the two things charts cannot: showing many variables at once without a legend, and letting the reader answer a question you never anticipated.

When to use a Table

  • Readers need to find their own row

    A league table, a price list, a set of results by region. If the most likely question is "what about mine?", search and sort beat any amount of visual polish.

  • The exact values matter

    Financial reporting, specifications, anything that will be quoted. Bars encode magnitude approximately; a table states it.

  • You have more variables than a chart can carry

    Five or six columns of mixed types — text, numbers, dates, percentages — fit comfortably in a table and nowhere else.

  • The categories have no natural order

    When there is no meaningful ranking to draw, sorting is the reader's job, not yours. Give them the control instead of picking for them.

When not to use a Table

  • The story is a shape

    Growth, decline, clustering, an outlier — these are seen instantly in a chart and almost never in a grid of digits. If you find yourself bolding cells to point at a pattern, you wanted a chart.

  • You want a magnitude compared at a glance

    Reading that 4,812 is roughly twice 2,390 takes real effort. A bar does it before the reader has finished the sentence.

  • There are hundreds of rows and no way to search

    A long unsearchable table is a document, not a visualisation. Either add search and pagination or aggregate to the twenty rows that matter.

  • It is going into a slide

    Tables reward reading at your own pace. On a slide behind a speaker, nobody has that, and a twelve-row table becomes a picture of a table.

How to make a Table

From a spreadsheet to a published chart, step by step.

01

Start from the table template

Open the PlotSet sortable table template. It loads with sample data bound so you can see how columns, search and sorting behave before you swap in your own.

02

Upload or connect your data

Import a CSV or Excel file, paste straight from a spreadsheet, or connect a Google Sheet if the table needs to stay current.

03

Set each column's type

Numbers, currency, percentages and dates each get their own alignment and sort behaviour. This is the step that decides whether sorting a column does something sensible or sorts 100 before 9.

04

Cut the columns you do not need

Every extra column costs the reader attention and costs you horizontal space on a phone. Keep the ones that answer the question the table exists to answer.

05

Publish, embed or export

Publish for a live embed with working search and sort, or export a PNG, SVG or PDF for a static context.

Start from the Table template with sample data already loaded, then swap in your own.

Open the template

The parts of a Table

Header row
Names the columns and carries the sort controls. It should stay visible while the body scrolls, or long tables lose their meaning halfway down.
Column
One variable. Numeric columns are right-aligned so digits line up by place value, which is what makes a column scannable at all.
Row
One record. Row striping or hover highlighting keeps the eye on the line across a wide table.
Sort control
Lets the reader re-rank by any column. It converts a static list into an answer to several different questions.
Search or filter
The feature that makes a long table usable. Without it, anything past about thirty rows is asking the reader to do the work manually.
In-cell visual
A bar, a colour or a sparkline inside a numeric cell. Adds the magnitude comparison a table normally lacks, without giving up the printed number.

Common Table mistakes

Inconsistent decimal places

Mixing 3.7 and 3.70 and 3.712 in one column destroys the alignment that makes numbers comparable. Pick a precision and apply it to the whole column.

Too many columns

A table wide enough to scroll sideways on a phone will be read as a fragment. Decide what the table is for and drop the rest.

Heavy gridlines

Full borders on every cell put a box around every number and slow reading down. Whitespace and a single rule under the header do more with less.

Sorting that ignores the data type

If a numeric column is stored as text, sorting produces alphabetical nonsense. Set the column types before you publish rather than after someone reports it.

Table: common questions

When readers need exact values, need to look up a specific row, or need several variables side by side. Use a chart when the point is a pattern — a trend, a comparison of magnitudes, or an outlier.

Make your Table now

Free to start with 300+ templates. No credit card required.

Create a Table — freeAll chart types