Background

The Plotly JSON visualization schema is a complete declarative format for creating, saving, and sharing interactive, scientific charts. The advantage of saving charts as JSON is portability - charts can be shared across any language or platform that understands the schema.

The complete JSON schema is maintained as part of Plotly’s V2 REST API:

1. Fully formatted JSON chart schema for every chart type: https://api.plot.ly/v2/plot-schema?sha1=%27%27
2. Raw JSON (plain text) chart schema for every chart type: https://api.plot.ly/v2/plot-schema?format=json&sha1=%27%27

Translations of the JSON schema for practical use in several languages are also available:

1. Python: https://plot.ly/python/reference/
2. R: https://plot.ly/r/reference/
3. MATLAB: https://plot.ly/matlab/reference/
4. JavaScript: https://plot.ly/javascript/reference/

Demo: Online JSON Editor

Try updating the chart by editing its JSON specification in this online JSON editor.

A Simple Example

Below is a Plotly bar chart with the JSON specification that describes it.

Chart Image

JSON Descripton of Chart

{
    "data": [
        {
            "x": [
                "giraffes",
                "orangutans",
                "monkeys"
            ],
            "y": [
                20,
                14,
                23
            ],
            "type": "bar"
        }
    ]
}

More Examples

Cross-Language Translation

Using this JSON specification, it is easy to handle translation between different chart and data formats:

Online JSON Editor

Try updating the chart by editing the JSON specification in this online JSON editor.