I would like to remind to people posting comments about how good this tool or that is for data visualization is, that the purpose for this space is to vote or share new ideas on how to improve Adobe Illustrator. It is not a forum to post how you solve the problem using another tool, but to suggest Adobe how to improve a tool they make.

The best data visualization tools include Google Charts, Tableau, Grafana, Chartist. js, FusionCharts, Datawrapper, Infogram, ChartBlocks, and D3. js. The best tools offer a variety of visualization styles, are easy to use, and can handle large data sets. check https://seotoolsystem.com/open-graph-generator

Since Adobe is not going to fix the Graph tool ever, at least release a cheat sheet with the codes for the data labels that can be added to the markers. I've been using Illustrator for almost 20 years and all I've learned about this is that if you write a pipe ( | ) it will be interpreted as line break, and if you write a %0n (n = any number) it will write the data with n decimals.
Make a cheat sheet or include this information on the Help.

@virgil lerubino.
Besides the extra cost, is there any other reason why you would not want to use Datylon for Illustrator? www.datylon.com. It does what you describe I think.

It might make sense to have it as a separate app as then it could have its own format that carries with it additional data about the chart. But the app should still be able to export a file in native Illustrator format, SVG, etc. (thus downgrading it) or be Placed directly into Illustrator, InDesign, PS, etc.

I definitely wouldn't want to have the functionality in two places i.e. separate app + existing tools within Illustrator. That would be infuriating, as they wouldn't have feature parity.

It being a separate app/file format would open up even more possibilities for doing things like templates and bulk chart merges (e.g. create loads of charts in the same style from a big data set).

inside illustrator please

Please bring them inside Illustrator. I am teaching Illustrator for about 25 years now (ACE) and so many people really like to create their infographics with the help of Illustrator and they do it very well. But some issues have to be improved, like the exchange of data concerning Microsoft Excel. We saw some new possibilities, I think it was In Illustrator version 2015, which was so nice and people liked it, but soon this disappeared completely. Why? Illustrator is such a beautiful program, it would be even more fascinating with modern competencies in creating charts.
Thanks a lot for listening, kind regards
Karine Salomon

2!
Having a well designed but easy to use graph tool (and accepting the comma in decimal, please!) is essential in Illustrator.

The entire planet generates data that needs to be put into graphical form. Illustrator urgently needs such a tool.

Build it within Illustrator. It's already there, improve it. EDIT: I just noticed this request was written in 2017. It's 2022 and still no improvement in the chart tool. It will never be improved, will it? You just toss it under the rug and release the next version of Ai.

Could it be an Adobe plug-in? It doesn't seem we should have to pay extra for a 3rd party plug-in.

Please just improve the UX of the existing tool at least?

Create infographics out of the box. Add Radial column charts (put column bars around a circle) increase size of shape by area (comparison), treemaps etc. There is a wealth of data viz to add to Illustrator. The graphs are ancient tools compared to the other tools in Illustrator. I teach illustrator and I see many students that come from Marketing dpts to learn Photoshop and InDesign and need better capability for Infographics.

Just use Datylon plugin https://www.datylon.com/
A game changer

Agreed!! It BLOWS my mind that I can't simply resize a pie chart to fit my graphic.
A separate program specifically for this purpose would likely be more powerful.

Happy to find my people here! I used to use a hateful little program called DeltaGraph to create all my graphs at a previous job... powerful program, but with so many bugs and quirks that my whole department despised it, and I tried and failed to find a workable alternative. I see that it's still on the same version it was when I left that job in 2018, and does not work on MacOS 15 because it's 32-bit software, with no update in sight. Lovely.

Current job has me creating a dozen graphs a day in Illustrator, and it's so much worse than DeltaGraph. I seriously can't make a pie by entering 25%, 50%, 25%? The percentage signs make it not recognize that these are numbers? Seriously? This is embarrassing stuff. Just installed Illustrator 2022 and, yep, Graph tool still has not been touched at all. Why even include it at this point, if it's clear it has absolutely never been a priority for the team?

On the question separate desktop app vs. tool within AI it depends:
1. if Adobe would be able to prepare a comprehensive tool with various types of charts, import tool and fancy tools for data viz then probably an separate app would be easier to work with. This would make AI a powerhosue for production of infographics and would simplify the workflow tremendously (which now involves vectorising charts produced in other software).
2. a tool within AI would probably have only limited funcitionalities.
3. a plug-in development and integration with some third party software for data analysis & data viz - the least favour option as it requires extra costs to purchase the third party software.

Forget...Adobe doesn't care about it. They bought Freehand, which had a amazing graph tool, but they learned zero with the app. I tried to add totals (labels, number whatever) to the stacked bars but it is not possible. The graph tool sucks.

Seriously the graphing in illustrator is rubbish - you style something, change the values and all your styling disappears - why cant they make this work!!! been so bad for so long ...

Yogesh Sharma asked on Oct 9, 2017

Prefer separate desktop app, but will accept either (JDI)

Update to Graphing feature