Charts and Diagrams

See your data, right in your documents

When you're writing an analysis, a business plan, or a research document, numbers in a table only tell part of the story. A chart shows the trend, the comparison, the pattern — at a glance.

Synap lets you embed interactive charts and diagrams directly inside your Markdown documents. They appear inline, as part of your narrative — you don't need to switch to another application or attach image files.

Two types of visuals

Data charts

For anything that involves numbers — trends over time, comparisons between categories, distributions, correlations. These are interactive: you can hover to see exact values, and click on legend items to filter what's shown.

Line charts, bar charts, area charts, scatter plots, pie charts, heatmaps — all the standard visualization types you'd expect.

Diagrams

For anything that shows relationships or processes — flowcharts, decision trees, timelines, organizational structures, database models, sequence diagrams. These render as clean vector graphics inside your document.

How it works

You write a special block inside your document, and Synap renders it as a visual. You don't need to know any programming — Claude can create these blocks for you.

Asking Claude to create charts

This is the most natural way to add charts. When you're working on a document with Claude, just ask:

"Add a line chart showing ROAS by channel over time, using the data in data/quarterly-data.csv"

"Create a pie chart of revenue distribution by vertical"

"Draw a flowchart of our campaign approval process"

Claude knows the syntax and will insert the right block into your document. The chart appears immediately in the viewer.

Charts from your data files

If you have CSV or JSON data files in your mind, charts can reference them directly. When Claude creates a chart block, it can point to your existing data files — no need to copy numbers into the chart by hand.

For example, if you have a file at data/revenue.csv next to your document, a chart can load that data automatically. When the data changes, the chart updates the next time you open the document.

Inline data

For quick, one-off charts — like comparing three numbers or showing a simple breakdown — the data can be written directly inside the chart block. This is useful for small visualizations that don't need a separate data file.

What you can visualize

With data charts

• Line charts — trends over time, like monthly revenue or quarterly ROAS
• Bar charts — comparisons between categories, like spend by marketing channel
• Area charts — cumulative values or stacked compositions
• Scatter plots — correlations between two metrics, like spend vs. revenue
• Pie and donut charts — proportional breakdowns, like market share
• Heatmaps — patterns across two dimensions, like costs by channel and quarter
• Grouped and stacked bars — side-by-side or layered comparisons

With diagrams

• Flowcharts — processes, decision trees, system architecture
• Sequence diagrams — step-by-step interactions between people or systems
• Gantt charts — project timelines with tasks and dependencies
• State diagrams — lifecycle stages and transitions
• Entity relationship diagrams — data models and connections
• Mindmaps — brainstorming and concept relationships
• Timelines — chronological events and milestones
• Pie charts — simple proportional breakdowns (for quick diagrams)

Interactivity

Data charts are interactive by default:

• Hover over any data point to see its exact value
• Click a legend item to highlight or filter that series
• Visual emphasis — when you hover over one series, others become subtle so you can focus

This makes charts useful not just for presentation, but for exploration. You can dig into the data right inside your document.

Tips for great charts

• Let Claude do the formatting — describe what you want in plain language, and Claude will create the right chart type with proper labels and formatting.
• Keep data files organized — put your CSVs in a data/ subfolder next to your analysis documents. Claude will reference them automatically.
• One chart, one story — each chart should highlight a single insight. If you have multiple points to make, use multiple charts with narrative text between them.
• Add context — write a sentence before each chart explaining what to look for, and a sentence after explaining what it means.