I don't really mind what program it's in, but I'd prefer it to not be cloud-based, as charts for many annual reports etc. are 'sensitive' and shouldn't be accessible through the cloud.

It has to support CMYK, Pantone colours, Style templates (to allow for setting of fonts/type sizes, chart area, primary/secondary colours, etc), and support more types of graphs/charts than it can at the moment. It has to be able to handle incoming data more easily.

90% of the Annual Reports and accounts that we do have charts in Excel supplied, and its a very lengthy and problematic process to import the data recreate the charts in the correct font, at the correct sizes, using the correct colours.

Keep in Illustrator, and also, once you've set up a style or theme for a chart, allow a way to copy style and paste on new chart.

At least the graph tool need to fully revamped. It lacks a lot of basic features and is not very stable. I get several crashes doing simple things. I think it should not be very hard.
For a more full featured and advanced graph/chart set of tools, I would not mind it is developed as Dimension, a separate application that can be integrated with Ai and ID. It may take shorter to build up, and many people do not use or need this kind of tool.
I understand not in cloud means data is not stored or handled though cloud libraries?

Keep charting within Illustrator.

As far as I can remember - back to 2003 - there have been NO improvements in the charting function. I may be wrong with the date, but it's not far off. I appeal to the AI team every year for this. Maybe we're finally getting some traction. Regarding Yogesh's question about a separate desktop app, that would be fine with me just as long as it WORKS. Here's my list if requests:

Allow use of "%" sign in data
Allow use of comma in data
Present comma when used in value axis
Present rounded "X.0" when used in data label (don't cut off ".0")
Add "show data label" option in "Type" options (like "add drop shadow)
Add right-click option to declare left column in data as "Categories." (Eliminate the need for quotes around numbers like years.)
Make the whole "design" process easier and more intuitive (templates?).
Preserve appearance when data is changed.
Make column sizing in the data sheet a "double-click" treatment.

Please address these and the other issues listed here.

This feature, when it comes out, needs to be able to make any chart or graph that you see in print or online in today and tomorrow's market. It has to do basic charts, cool charts, and infographics. It has to link to Excel data for updates. It has to be in Illustrator so other Illustrator features can be used with and around it.
And you have to work with Mark Heaps. That's essential.

My group would DEFINITELY be interested in more robust charting features (scatter, multi-chart overlays, etc.), as well as the ability to use simple transform, align, etc. features on graph elements (w/o ungrouping the chart). We use Illustrator almost exclusively for charts, and have been looking at other charting software to replace AI. We sometimes have to create the graph in Excel, convert to PDF, and edit in AI (where it's no longer data-driven).
Illustrator graph features have not changed since (at least) version 4--sometime in the 1990's? 20 years ago?!

I would lean towards incorporating this into Illustrator because it has more robust editing tools. I like where Project Lincoln is heading but we really need a wide variety of data viz options and that seems like it would be best done inside AI.

Current chart types needed, beyond the standards, would include:
- Scatter Plots
- Bullet charts
- dendograms, sankey and alluvial diagrams
- treemaps
- circle packing and clusters, bubble charts,
- parallel coordinates
- gant chart
- steam graphs
- sunburst, chord diagrams

If you added cartographic mapping it would be amazing!!!

However, I would take ANYTHING at this point.

Any timing available for Project Lincoln?
Thank you,
Carla

I work on charts that get regularly updated. I would like to be able to preserve the look of them after the data is changed. At present, all fills and effects disappear and effects have to be reapplied manually.

I just learned about linking graph ai's in InDesign layouts to save time, but having to reapply effects each time negates most of the saved. time.

Another bug: if any data is over 3 million, the graph doesn't work. I work for a financial institution - a lot of large numbers. I have to take several zeroes off the end of all data when working with large numbers, then add them back on to the value axis when I'm all done entering data. A real pain.

The chart tool is great for transforming data but the user experience is lacking. You cannot scale a chart after creating the bounding box, and you cannot change the orientation of the category axis if the fields are too long character wise to sit beside each other. At times the properties panel cannot recognize that you are selecting a whole group of text so you have to go and manually edit from the top menu. There is also no option to show data points and position said points. Example: if you wanted to show a percentage inside a graph or outside of a bar graph you'd have to manually select and move. I attended Adobe Max this year and saw a sneak for project Lincoln, a LOT of those features would be extremely helpful!

Yes if we can support logarithmic scale that would be phenomenal. Come on Adobe! You don't want us designers to have to find other software to handle what we all know Adobe can handle, do you?

Seeing Yogesh Sharma's question above, I would *love* to see Adobe concentrate on a dedicated app for charting, graphing and infographics.
Then, lo and behold, I see a Sneek Peek from Max:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=lX1BBMyY1bc
which looks HUGELY promising. What stage is Project Lincoln at. May I join the pre-release on that? This is EXACTLY what I have been hoping would be introduced.

I think it makes the most sense to do within illustrator.

To add another complaint to the list, if I make several bar charts for one document with varying numbers of bars, but I want all the bars to appear the same width throughout, why do I have to painstakingly resize them all with scale and percentages of cluster widths? Could the Type menu not possess the function for me to enter the width of bars and the space between them in mm and resize itself according to the number of bars?

Also, could the value axis labels not jump up and down every time I update the data? Just looking for a bit of consistency.

Having a separate, robust app would be great (and surprisingly missing amongst the Adobe family of apps) but also some "simple" fixes to the graph tool in AI would also be very welcome.

Yes and yes.

A discrete chart/infographic designer could be fantastic. Certainly it would be more widely adopted and would have the potential to be more robust than a tool within AI (e.g. linking, layered data sets, animation etc.).

Data visualization seems to be a common need across all media types and it would make sense to have a focused tool that can easily integrate with varying workflows incl. providing editable source to Ai/Ps/Ae, or direct placement in In/Pr/Dw/Mu etc..

That said, I'm hesitant to suggest work on a new product (with undetermined design goals, and that could be discontinued at some point) over working to modernize an established product that I use daily.

The other problem is that these two choices almost certainly will deal with different users and use-cases, to the point that they aren't really comparable. IMHO, when and if this great infographic app is available let's then pose the question "do you still need a chart tool in Ai?" - until then, lets fix what's broken.

1. Would a separate app make it easier for Adobe to concentrate on getting these issues fixed quickly? Some comments in the stream say it hasn't changed since Illustrator 5. Actually the chart tool hasn't changed since about version 1. A separate desktop app would be fine as long as I don't use much of the functionalities found in Illustrator that relate to creating, modifying, updating, or reformatting charts.

2. Fixing, improving, evolving the chart tool within Illustrator would be fine. But if this is going to take years instead of months to tackle because of the other complexities having to do with other improvements within Illustrator, then make it a separate app.

Good question. There are pros and cons. While I can appreciate the desire to keep this function in Illustrator, and thus part of current subscription plans, my questions is this: How can Adobe create a better charting tool soonest, and how do we avoid getting so far behind the times again? If a separate app means that the tool gets updated more frequently, that's the way to go. I would guess that 95% of Illustrator users never touch the chart tool, but nearly all of those who do are extremely frustrated with it. I've talked with several people in our industry, and everyone has the same set of frustrations with it.

I'd rather have in Illustrator.

Especially with your comment "it may not be on cloud" does that mean it won't be included in part of grade of cloud subscription the last thing I need is to pay for another item.