Charts

The Google Sheets API lets you create and update charts within spreadsheets as needed. The examples on this page illustrate how you can achieve some common chart operations with the Sheets API.

These examples are presented in the form of HTTP requests to be language neutral. To learn how to implement a batch update in different languages using the Google API client libraries, see Update spreadsheets.

In these examples, the placeholders SPREADSHEET_ID and SHEET_ID

indicates where you would provide those IDs. You can find the spreadsheet ID in the spreadsheet URL. You can get the sheet ID by using the spreadsheets.get method. The ranges are specified using A1 notation. An example range is Sheet1!A1:D5.

Additionally, the placeholder CHART_ID indicates the ID of a given chart. You can set this ID when creating a chart with the Sheets API, or allow Sheets API to generate one for you. You can get the IDs of existing charts with the spreadsheets.get method.

Finally, the placeholder SOURCE_SHEET_ID indicates your sheet with the source data. In these examples, this is the table listed under Chart source data.

Chart source data

For these examples, assume the spreadsheet being used has the following source data in its first sheet ("Sheet1"). The strings in the first row are labels for the individual columns. To view examples of how to read from other sheets in your spreadsheet, see A1 notation.

A B C D E
1 Model Number Sales - Jan Sales - Feb Sales - Mar Total Sales
2 D-01X 68 74 60 202
3 FR-0B1 97 76 88 261
4 P-034 27 49 32 108
5 P-105 46 44 67 157
6 W-11 75 68 87 230
7 W-24 74 52 62 188

Add a column chart

The following spreadsheets.batchUpdate code sample shows how to use the AddChartRequest to create a column chart from the source data, placing it in a new sheet. The request does the following to configure the chart:

  • Sets the chart type as a column chart.
  • Adds a legend to the bottom of the chart.
  • Sets the chart and axis titles.
  • Configures 3 data series, representing sales for 3 different months while using default formatting and colors.

The request protocol is shown below.

POST https://sheets.googleapis.com/v4/spreadsheets/SPREADSHEET_ID:batchUpdate
 
{
  "requests": [
    {
      "addChart": {
        "chart": {
          "spec": {
            "title": "Model Q1 Sales",
            "basicChart": {
              "chartType": "COLUMN",
              "legendPosition": "BOTTOM_LEGEND",
              "axis": [
                {
                  "position": "BOTTOM_AXIS",
                  "title": "Model Numbers"
                },
                {
                  "position": "LEFT_AXIS",
                  "title": "Sales"
                }
              ],
              "domains": [
                {
                  "domain": {
                    "sourceRange": {
                      "sources": [
                        {
                          "sheetId": SOURCE_SHEET_ID,
                          "startRowIndex": 0,
                          "endRowIndex": 7,
                          "startColumnIndex": 0,
                          "endColumnIndex": 1
                        }
                      ]
                    }
                  }
                }
              ],
              "series": [
                {
                  "series": {
                    "sourceRange": {
                      "sources": [
                        {
                          "sheetId": SOURCE_SHEET_ID,
                          "startRowIndex": 0,
                          "endRowIndex": 7,
                          "startColumnIndex": 1,
                          "endColumnIndex": 2
                        }
                      ]
                    }
                  },
                  "targetAxis": "LEFT_AXIS"
                },
                {
                  "series": {
                    "sourceRange": {
                      "sources": [
                        {
                          "sheetId": SOURCE_SHEET_ID,
                          "startRowIndex": 0,
                          "endRowIndex": 7,
                          "startColumnIndex": 2,
                          "endColumnIndex"