Last updated on 12 May 2026
Charterd is a new particularly promising data visualization tool launched by Medium.
Medium it is the company that put online some time ago a rather innovative blogging platform focused on text and storytelling along the way. It has just made public a small utility in open source that allows to create beautiful interactive graphics from raw data in seconds.
The tool created and used internally by the Medium team is now available to the entire community. It will be of interest to researchers, academics and journalists.
The web version can be used by anyone. Simply store the data on Dropbox or Google Drive and provide the shared link to Charterd. The Charterd source code is also available on GitHub so that developers can host the tool on their own server if they wish.
In its web use, the tool is very simple. This is one of the basic principles that guided its creation. Like the blogs created on Medium, Charterd proposes very few formatting options. The data visualisation tool works to reduce the number of actions needed to achieve a result. In other words, avoid falling into the ‘gas plant’ trap. As far as data security is concerned, Charterd does not store or modify the data. it will only connect at regular intervals to the source you are going to tell it to show you a visualization in the form of an up-to-date graph.
The basic use can not be simpler. You must provide the Google Drive or Dropbox link that leads to your Data and then choose the type of chart.
You can then add title, tags and notes very easily and choose the background color for your chart. Charterd offers the possibility to edit and download the data source. And that’s all or just about everything. In other words, the tool rids you of the problems of graphical creation of visualization to allow you to focus on the essential: data.
The charts created in this way on Charterd are interactive and the tool provides a link for you to share the page. On the other hand, there is no possibility (not yet?) of inserting a graphic on a website or blog. Charterd is fast, simple, free and distributed in open source. It is likely to continue to evolve and improve. To be followed, then.
Link: Charterd.
English