Review: For charting data, Chartsmith is capable but outdated
Chartsmith is a Mac app designed to do one thing, and only one thing: make charts. If your charting needs are casual and infrequent, this is not the app for you; you’ll be more than happy using Numbers, Excel, or any other spreadsheet to create the occasional chart. Conversely, you’d assume that if your chart needs are serious and frequent, Chartsmith would be the app to use, right? The answer to that question, unfortunately, isn’t an automatic yes.
Launching Chartsmith is a bit like stepping into a time machine: Chartsmith’s interface seems dated, with a two-window setup (plus a nearly-required Inspector window), a drawer for chart notes, and an odd toolbar-like thing that floats next to the chart window, yet is attached (with a delay) when you move the chart window around.
Although everything works, there is a learning curve, and there’s this general feeling that the interface is out of date.
The flashback extends to the tutorials, too. Remember Aqua’s stripes and bright blue 3D-esque tab buttons? You’ll find them alive and well in the screenshots in the tutorials. (Thankfully, the app itself doesn’t share the appearance of the tutorial’s screenshots.) The whole thing just feels somewhat dated and dusty, though everything works.
Using Chartsmith is unlike using a spreadsheet to create charts. Once I learned the interface, though, Chartsmith was relatively easy to use. The aforementioned two windows contain the chart viewer (which holds the charts) and the data viewer (for entering/editing data), and the inspector is used to customize every element of your charts. The chart viewer window shows real-time changes as you make edits in the data viewer window, and you can change text (but not values) directly on the charts, if you prefer. Creating a chart is as simple as adding rows and columns in the data viewer, entering your data, and choosing a chart type. Want to change one bar of a three-bar chart to line? One click of a button in the data viewer window, and that task is done.
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