I just discovered Google Charts. I’d never heard of it before, but I’m the sort of person who reads an article and scans for numbers and flips for charts, so this seemed pretty cool. Essentially, it’s an API that lets you create a chart with a simple URL.

How hard is it to create a chart? Well, let’s just bring up the ol’ Google-o-meter and see:

Google-o-meter demo

Created simply with one line of HTML like so:

<img src="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chs=300×150&chd=t:85&cht=gom&chl=Easy" alt="Google-o-meter demo" />

You may ask, how many writers on this blog have tried the Google Charts API? Let’s see:

Bar Chart

And here’s the HTML:

<img src="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chs=300×200&chd=t:1|0&cht=bvg&chds=0,2&chbh=a&chtt=RBT+Authors+using+Charts&chco=4D89F9|C6D9FD&chdl=Yes|No" alt="Bar Chart" />

And where did those authors come from?

Map of the US

And again, one simple line of HTML:

<img src="http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chs=440×220&chd=t:0&chld=CA&cht=t&chtm=usa&chco=FFFFFF,0000FF,FF0000&chf=bg,s,EAF7FE" alt="Map of the US"/>

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Filed under: Software and Computing • Web Fun

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