The Easiest Way to Create Charts in Notion

Learn how to easily add charts to your Notion pages with NotionCharts by William Nutt.
Tools mentioned
Tutorial overview

I. Introduction

  • Introduce the video topic and the guest speaker, William Nutt of Nutt Labs.
  • Mention that Nutt Labs is a Notion consultancy and the creator of Notion Charts, a tool for creating charts to embed in Notion pages.
  • Preview that the video will cover how to create and embed charts in Notion using Notion Charts.

II. Overview of Notion Charts

  • Introduce Notion Charts and its features, such as chart styles specifically designed for Notion and interactive charts with hover-over information.
  • Explain that Notion Charts currently pulls data from Google Sheets, but private data functionality will be coming with Notion's API.

III. Creating a Chart with Notion Charts

  • Discuss the first step of preparing a Google Sheet for use with Notion Charts.
  • Go over the demo data provided by Notion Charts and how to structure data for different chart types.
  • Explain how to ensure that a Google Sheet is publicly accessible and how to copy the sheet ID and tab name.
  • Describe how to customize the chart, including choosing the chart type, light or dark mode, formatting for axes labels, and colors.

IV. Embedding a Chart in Notion

  • Describe the final step of generating a special URL by clicking the "Make Magic" button in Notion Charts.
  • Explain how to copy-and-paste the URL to create an embed and add it to a Notion page.
  • Encourage viewers to opt-in to the Notion VIP newsletter for more Notion resources and tips.

V. Conclusion

  • Summarize the main points covered in the video.
  • Thank William Nutt for appearing on the video and sharing his expertise on Notion Charts.
  • Encourage viewers to subscribe to the Keep Productive YouTube channel and Notion VIP newsletter.

Transcript

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Keep Productive YouTube channel.

It is Francesco here, and in today's video, I'm gonna be passing over to William Nutt. Who runs NuttLabs and they are basically a Notion consultancy, but they also do a fantastic newsletter and resource called Notion VIP, which is perfect for those who are building out their Notion now. I actually checked out their product Notion Charts, which has been on ProductHunt for a while.

So in today's video, I'm actually gonna pass over to Will, who's actually gonna dive into the charts, how to create one, and how to embed one inside of your Notion account. So, thank you very much to Will for coming on and I will pass over to Will guys, and I hope you have a fantastic weekend. If you're new here, subscribe to both Will and I, I'll see you in a bit guys. Cheers.

Thanks so much Francesco, it's a pleasure to join you. As Francesco mentioned, I'm William Nutt of Nutt Labs and we're an integrated digital strategy firm and Notion consultancy based in New York. And I also run the website Notion VIP where I publish tools and insights about all things Notion. Among those tools is Notion Charts, which you can access at notionvip.com/charts.

Notion Charts allows any user to create charts and embed them in their Notion pages and those charts are styled and generated specifically for Notion so that they blend nicely into your pages' content. So in this sample dashboard, you can see that we have a variety of different chart types.

These charts are going to use the same colors that you can use for your text and Notion, and they're also interactive so you can hover over them to reveal additional information.

So until Notion releases its API, these charts are going to pull their information dynamically from Google Sheets and that means you can update the information easily and you can even automate it using Google Sheets Integrations. So let's take a look at how it works.

The first step is preparing your Google Sheet. Within Notion Charts, under the data range field, you're gonna have a link to some demo data and that demo data shows you just how to structure your data for the various chart types. So you can see here that we have sample data for line charts, bar and column charts, pie and donut charts, and then geo charts.

So let's use the line chart data to create a line chart that showcases consulting income by month. With your data properly structured, you want to ensure that your sheet is publicly accessible. We're gonna use Notion's API to accommodate private data, so in the meantime, you're not gonna want to use Notion Charts for any sensitive information.

So you'll click the share button at the top of the screen and you'll just ensure that anyone with the link can view the document. And then you want to copy your sheet ID, and you'll do that by grabbing this of characters between the d/ and the /edit. So you'll copy that and you'll go back over into Notion Charts and you'll paste it in the first field. And then you need the sheet name or the tab name of your document. In our case, that's data structures. And then you want the precise data range. So for our line chart that's going to be a 3xB 15.

Then you can customize your chart. So for the chart type, ours is going to be a line chart, which is the default.

Then you can choose light mode or dark mode, and then you'll choose the formatting for your axes labels.

We're working with dates and currency, so we're going to choose our formatting accordingly.

Then, you'll choose your colors. As I mentioned, you can choose among the same colors that you use for your text in Notion. For this chart or line chart, we're just going to have one color. Let's use that Notion pink.

The last step is to opt-in to the Notion VIP newsletter, which I recommend. Then you'll hit the "Make Magic" button. What that's going to do is generate a special URL that you can copy-and-paste.

When you do that, you'll have the option to create an embed. And boom, there's your chart. You can resize it to fit nicely within your content and you'll see the chart respond in real time.

Now, if this last step gives you any trouble, be sure to use the Notion desktop app instead of the web app. Because that embed block can be a little finicky within the web app.

But once you get the chart in place, it's going to display properly everywhere. That's Notion Charts. I'd love to see what you come up with using the tool.

Feel free to pass along any of your creations on Twitter. My handle is @WilliamNutt.

Thanks so much for tuning in to this quick dinner demo, and be sure to check out Notion VIP for some additional resources about Notion.