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Timeline Maker

Lay out a sequence of dated events — with notes and images on each one — and publish an interactive timeline chart you can embed anywhere. Free, no design work required.

Crear un Timeline — gratisVer la galería

¿Qué es un Timeline?

A timeline puts events in order along a time axis so a reader can see what happened, when, and in what sequence. It is the one chart whose data is not numbers: each row is a moment and a description, and the visual work is arranging those moments so the shape of the story survives. That makes it a narrative device more than an analytical one — a timeline is how you explain a company history, a product roadmap, a legislative process, a scientific discovery or the run-up to an event, and it is why timelines carry text and images that would be noise on any other chart. What it does not do is show a measurement changing; if your rows have a value in them, you want a line chart.

Cuándo usar un Timeline

  • Your data is dated events, not measurements

    Founding dates, releases, treaties, court rulings, milestones. One row per event, each with a date and something to say about it.

  • The order is the point

    Readers need to know what came before what — which decision preceded which outcome, which release followed which incident. A timeline makes sequence unambiguous.

  • Each event needs explaining

    Timelines are the one chart type where a paragraph and a photograph per data point are appropriate rather than clutter.

  • You have somewhere between five and about twenty events

    Enough that the sequence has a shape, few enough that every marker can carry a readable label.

Cuándo no usar un Timeline

  • You are tracking a value over time

    Revenue by quarter, temperature by year, users by month. That is a line chart or an area chart — a timeline has no value axis to plot them against.

  • Your events have durations and dependencies

    Tasks that start, run and overlap are a project timeline: bars on a schedule, not points on a line. PlotSet has a separate project-management template for that shape.

  • There are dozens of events

    Past roughly twenty markers the labels collide and the chart becomes a decorated list. Group into phases, or split into several timelines.

  • The dates are vague or contested

    A timeline commits to a position for every event. If half your dates are "sometime in the 1970s", a written chronology is more honest than a chart implying precision.

Cómo crear un Timeline

De una hoja de cálculo a un gráfico publicado, paso a paso.

01

Start from the timeline template

Open the PlotSet timeline template. It loads with sample events already bound, so you can see how a date, a title, a note and an image become one marker.

02

Shape your data as one row per event

Four columns is the usual set: the time, a short title, a longer comment, and an image URL. Only the time and the title are required — the rest is there when an event needs it.

03

Keep the dates in one format

Pick a precision — years, or full dates — and use it in every row. Mixed precision is what makes timelines look wrong, and the date-format setting can only render what you gave it.

04

Upload or connect your data

Import a CSV or Excel file, paste from a spreadsheet, or connect a Google Sheet so the timeline can be extended as new events happen.

05

Write the labels like headlines

The title is what a reader takes away in a second; the comment is for whoever stops to read. Front-load the title with the thing that changed, not with the date — the date is already on the axis.

06

Publish, embed or export

Publish for a live interactive timeline where each marker reveals its note and image, or export a PNG, SVG or PDF for a report or a deck.

Empieza con la plantilla de Timeline, que ya trae datos de ejemplo, y sustitúyelos por los tuyos.

Abrir la plantilla

Las partes de un Timeline

Spine
The bar or line the events sit on. It is the axis, so its direction — left to right, or top to bottom — sets how the whole chart is read.
Marker
The circle at each event. Size and stroke are what separate a major moment from a minor one, before any text is read.
Event title
The short label attached to a marker. It carries the chart on its own for anyone skimming.
Comment
The longer note under the title. Room for the sentence of context that would otherwise sit in a caption a reader never reaches.
Date label
The formatted time value. Consistent precision here is what makes a timeline feel authoritative rather than improvised.
Image
An optional picture per event, addressed by URL. On a history or product timeline it does more work than any styling choice.

Errores comunes con un Timeline

Mixing levels of precision

One event dated to the day next to one dated to the decade tells the reader the chart does not know how confident it is. Round everything to the coarsest date you actually trust.

Cramming in every event you have

A timeline is an edit, not an archive. Pick the moments that change the story and put the rest in the accompanying text.

Letting equal spacing imply equal gaps

Events listed in order look evenly paced even when four of them happened in one year and the fifth arrived a decade later. If the gaps matter, say so in a label or a note.

Writing titles that repeat the date

"2016: the 2016 merger" spends the label on information the axis already gave. Use it for what happened instead.

Making it a decoration

Curved paths, alternating sides and icon sets are style choices that cost legibility. A straight spine with clear labels is read faster and reproduces better in print.

Timeline: preguntas frecuentes

A chart that arranges dated events along a time axis so their order and spacing can be read at a glance. Each event usually carries a short title, and often a note and an image.

Crea tu Timeline ahora

Gratis para empezar, con más de 300 plantillas. Sin tarjeta de crédito.

Crear un Timeline — gratisTodos los tipos de gráficos