Streamgraph Maker

How the Streamgraph Maker works

Streamgraph maker: writing the table

The first line is a header: the period column followed by one column per series. Each following line is one period with a value under every series; a blank cell counts as zero. Periods can be years, ISO dates such as 2024-03-01, or plain labels. Tabs work in place of commas, so a block copied from a spreadsheet pastes straight in. Two rows is the minimum, though the streams only start to flow with five or more.

Baseline

Wiggle is the classic streamgraph baseline: it shifts the stack up and down to minimise the slope of every layer, which gives the smoothest overall shape. Silhouette centres the stack around the middle so the outline is symmetric, which is easier to read when the total matters. Zero keeps the bottom flat, turning the drawing into an ordinary stacked area with smooth edges, useful when the audience needs to read absolute values off the top edge.

Stream order

Inside out places the series that peak earliest in the middle and later peaks towards the edges, which is the ordering that keeps a streamgraph legible. Descending puts the largest series at the bottom, and As entered keeps your column order, which is right when the columns already have a meaning such as oldest to newest product.

Names and edges

With names on streams, each series is labelled at its widest point in white text, so a legend is unnecessary; streams too thin to hold text are left unlabelled and listed in the tooltip instead. In legend prints a normal legend under the chart. Smooth edges use a basis curve that rounds the corners; Straight joins the points with lines, which is more honest about sparse data.

Exporting

Download SVG gives a vector file with the labels as editable text, ready for Inkscape, Illustrator or Figma. Download PNG renders at one, two or three times the preview width. Copy SVG puts the markup on the clipboard. Everything is drawn in your browser; the table never leaves your machine.

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