This is definitely one of the most lacking and weakest areas of AI. In the age of data viz and infographics to have a graphing tool look and perform like in the 1990s is just embarassing.
There should be new chart types available (map, chloropeth, sankey, sunburst, multiple ring donuts, etc.) to avoid workarounds of doing charts in e.g. Tableau or Excel and importing them for cumbersome manipulations.
This is easily the most obvious feature of AI that requests not tweaking, but a revolutionary thorough reworking.

Datylon has developed a plugin for Illustrator to create, edit and share captivating charts in an efficient way including all the features mentioned in this thread . See https://www.datylon.com/product/datylon-for-illustrator

We offer yearly but also monthly subscriptions for designers that do not use it all the time. Or, if you design charts only occasionally, you can use our free online Datylon Chart Maker and import your charts as SVG in Illustrator or Indesign. Check it out here: https://insights.datylon.com/

I wish I could vote this a thousand times. Once Affinity get a chart tool together, you're going to see a lot of designers out of the Adobe ecosystem altogether.

Hey @Yogesh why ask and then not even provide us with an update or any other response for over 3 years? This is infuriating.

The chart function hasn't been updated for as long as I can remember. A lot of designers work with financial reports, and we feel that this function is like from the 80s! This function doesn't work very well, almost every time you have to manually adjust lines, fillings etc. And when you change one value, you have to go over it again. Why can't there be a bunch of nice designed presets to start with, so we at least have some nice charts to begin with.

Since no one from Adobe is listening to this, I'm heading over to Twitter to see if I can give this thread a bump. https://twitter.com/ianaberle/status/1287784427322593286

Thanks to Martin Cross for inspiring the tweet.

I think the problem is that for a good number of years now Adobe has been run by bean counters rather than people who really understand and are passionate about developing and improving their products. There are now a good number of free 'Open Source' alternatives to the holy trinity (Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign) and if Adobe are not careful people will start turning to these alternatives in the same way that a lot of companies are using 'Open Office' and Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office.

This particular thread is not really a bug/improvement thread any more. It evolved into a kind of support group for those that have to constantly fight with Illustrator's graphing tool to get it to do basic things.

It barely works, Adobe, and you know it. It's embarrassing to have a client with you who has built a graph in Excel and watch you try and bend Illustrator's arm behind its back to get it to display the data in the same way that Excel managed to do in minutes.

It's been 3 years since anyone at Adobe has even recognised this thread. 3 Years.

Ian Aberle,

Thanks for highlighting this dreadful tutorial. Words fail me. What muppet at Adobe thinks this is good?

I thought that when Adobe went to the subscription model, it was so that they could dedicate resources to improving their package products. Although that seems to have been the case in the first few years, it just seems like updates and improvements have slowed to a trickle... prices keep going up and return keeps going down. Seriously, why hasn't Illustrator evolved much in the past 10 yrs? It is essentially the same software since Illustrator '88. Even the most basic features like folders don't exist in the software. I can only imagine how much more Adobe is making each year with the subscription model but the return on investment is really sucking these past few years.

Well said Donna!

The first version of Adobe Illustrator I ever used used was Illustrator '88 because it was launched in 1988. In all this time I have seen a lot of bells and whistles added to Illustrator but the graph tool has never been touched since 1988. It's really not fit for purpose in the year 2020. At the very least couldn't you link it to an Excel file so that when the data changes it would update the graph via the links panel. This already happens in InDesign. Some preview check boxes in the dialogue boxes would be useful too and a way of creating a simple 3D graph would help. Surely these are minor tweaks and NO - we don't want a separate app or plugins or anything that costs more money. It should be par for the course in something that is supposed to be a premium vector drawing application.

I think you REALLY need to re-write the graphing tool in illustrator. You have a lot of illustrator users who create graphs and information graphics using illustrator. Why hasn't it been updated in years? It needs up to date charting features and a better interface. Users shouldn't have to pay out for another plugin such as datylon to get the job done!

I hate your guts for this tool Adobe, now symbol on bar charts are bugged…
How do you manage to make this **** even worse?

Editability, data formatting, resizing, legend positioning, no maximum value in Axis, etc...

@Ian Aberle HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yes - make better bar graphs by not using Illustrator's built in bar graph feature because it's terrible. This is also a terrible solution - good luck manually entering in and placing the data at the right size. Better build a very high resolution grid.

Adobe - you've topped yourself this time. This is truly embarrassing.

Even Adobe's own marketing materials are ignoring the chart tool. See "Make better bar graphs with Adobe Illustrator" at https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/how-to/make-better-bar-graphs.html.

Hi Roobin,
For a very reasonable price you'll find a plugin "Datylon for Illustrator" which has all the features on board to make advanced, re-usable charts. Try it out for free here: https://datylon.com/illustrator

Just do something, ANYTHING to the graph tool. It is absolutely ridiculous that you've been comfortable shipping this tool in it's same hopelessly inadequate state for years and years

Please could you rewrite charts tools? It Is very old and many features/properties of (dynamic) charts is very hard to make. Please create new and modenr tool. Thanks!