Chart Prompts

1,337 ways to dress a line or bar chart, 669 light and 668 dark. Open any chart to see it full size and copy a prompt that gives your own chart the same look.

Every chart uses illustrative data. The prompts work with any coding agent and any charting library; they describe colors, type, spacing and marks precisely enough to reproduce each look.

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Elevation Profile line chart, light theme: Buff survey paper, a hachured trail profile and angled map lettering.

Elevation Profile

LightLine

Buff survey paper, a hachured trail profile and angled map lettering.

  • Buff paper#F3ECDC
  • Contour#E2D6BC
  • Hachure brown#9B7550
  • Profile umber#5A3A1E
  • Summit red#A8412B

Prompt for your coding agent

Paste it with your chart's code. It restyles your data to match this chart.

Restyle my chart in the "Elevation Profile" style described below. Keep my data, chart type, title meaning and units; change only the presentation. Use the charting library this project already uses (plain SVG if there is none). If the library can't express a detail, draw it in a custom layer instead of dropping it. Measurements assume a 960 x 600 chart; scale them proportionally.

Mood: the trail profile printed in the margin of a good alpine hiking map. Buff survey paper, faint contour lines, a hand-engraved feel: fine brown hachures under a dark umber profile, italic map lettering and a proper scale bar.

Colors (use these exact values):
- Paper: #F3ECDC (buff) for the whole canvas.
- Background contour texture: #E2D6BC.
- Hachures: #9B7550 (hachure brown). Pale ground fill under the profile: #EADFC6.
- Profile line, baseline, ticks, triangles and scale bar: #5A3A1E (umber).
- Summit / highest point accent: #A8412B (map red), used only for the single most important point.
- Main text: #3B2A1A. Secondary text: #7A6650. Dotted gridlines: #CDBE9E.

Typography (Google Fonts):
- Source Serif 4: title 600 28px #3B2A1A stating the finding (computed from the data); subtitle italic 400 17px #7A6650 with measure, unit and x measure; waypoint and category labels italic 400 15px with 0.4px letter-spacing (the highlighted one 600 17px in #A8412B); small italic notes 13px.
- Source Sans 3: axis numbers 14px #7A6650, value labels under names 12px, scale-bar numerals 12px, source 12px.

Layout:
- Title baseline at y 64 and subtitle at y 94, both left-aligned at x 64. Plot area x 96 to 884, y 176 (top of range) to 506 (baseline).
- Bottom row at y about 569: "Source: illustrative data" at the left, and at the right a scale bar with an italic "Vertical exaggeration N:1" note to its left.

Texture:
- Faint topographic contours behind everything: two or three irregular nested rings (radius steps of 17px, a gentle 3-lobe and 5-lobe wobble, stretched 1.35x horizontally) centered partly off-canvas, stroke #E2D6BC 0.7px, every fifth ring an index contour at 1.3px. They must stay subtle; the chart sits on top.

Axes and grid:
- Y labels at the left, right-aligned 12px from the plot, every 500 with a thousands separator; a small italic unit label ("m") above the top value.
- Gridlines at each labeled value except the baseline: 0.8px #CDBE9E dotted (1 on, 4 off).
- A 1.2px umber baseline. Ticks hang below it every 2 units (4px) with longer 7px ticks at labeled values; x labels 24px below the baseline, unit on the last one ("42 km").

Marks:
- Line chart: the series is drawn as a terrain profile. Fill below it to the baseline with #EADFC6, then vertical hachure strokes every 4px from 1.5px below the line to the baseline in #9B7550, each stroke's width 0.3px plus the local steepness (absolute slope over a small window / 190, capped at 2.1px), so steep climbs read darker. Fade the hachures with a vertical mask from 100% opacity at the top of the plot to 35% at the baseline. Draw the line on top in #5A3A1E, 2.6px, round joins. With multiple series, give only the primary one the hachure fill; draw the others as 2px umber lines dashed 6 3 with direct italic labels.
- Bar chart: bars become terrain columns: #EADFC6 fill with the same #9B7550 vertical hachures (4px pitch, 0.6px, faded downward), a 2px #5A3A1E top edge and 1px umber sides, square corners, 60% of the band. The tallest bar gets a #A8412B top edge and a small red triangle above it. Value labels in Source Sans 3 12px #7A6650 above each bar.
- Key points (waypoints, notable categories) get small triangles about 11px wide sitting on the line: filled umber for towns or peaks, paper-filled with an umber 1.4px outline for huts or minor points, filled red and 14px wide for the highlight.

Labels and annotation:
- Label key points with italic serif names set like map lettering: rotated -10 degrees and centered above the triangle, with the value ("2,610 m") in 12px sans 17px above the name, rotated with it. For a point in a valley, put the label upright below the line instead. Where there is no room above, lift the label and join it to its triangle with a 0.8px umber hairline leader, or set it upright just past the end of the line.
- Scale bar: five alternating umber and paper segments 6px tall with a 0.8px umber outline, spanning a round distance in x units, numbered 0, a midpoint and the end with the unit.

Avoid: a legend box, bright colors, gradients other than the hachure fade, drop shadows, rounded corners, heavy gridlines, sans-serif titles, and contour texture strong enough to compete with the data.

When you're done, render the chart and check that hachures visibly darken on steep sections, no waypoint label touches the profile line, the title's numbers match the data, the scale bar length matches its label, and the contour texture stays faint.