What charts can I create in TextQuery and how do I export them?

Updated

TextQuery supports five chart types — line, bar, area, scatter, and pie — and you can export a chart to a file or copy it straight to your clipboard for sharing. The same app also exports the underlying data as CSV, JSON, Excel, or SQL, so you can either share the picture or hand over the numbers behind it.

Chart types available

All five chart types are built into the app, so you pick the one that fits your data shape rather than installing anything extra:

Chart type Typical use
Line Trends over time or another ordered sequence
Bar Comparing values across categories
Area Trends where the cumulative volume matters
Scatter Relationship between two numeric fields
Pie Share-of-total breakdowns across a few categories

Charts are created inside the app after you query your data with SQL, so the chart reflects whatever result set your query returns.

Customizing a chart

TextQuery lets you adjust three things before you export:

  • Title — the chart heading
  • Description — supporting text shown with the chart
  • Colors — the palette used to render the series

The app describes the charts as "clean" and "beautiful" out of the box, with customization kept simple rather than exposing a deep styling panel. If you need heavy visual theming, expect to do that after export.

Exporting a chart

There are two paths, both from within the app:

  1. Export to a file — save the chart as an image file you can attach to a report, ticket, or slide deck.
  2. Share from clipboard — copy the chart directly and paste it into a chat, doc, or email without saving a file first.

The clipboard route is the faster one for quick sharing; the file route is better when you need a stable artifact to reference later.

Exporting the data behind the chart

Charts are only half the output. TextQuery also exports data in multiple formats:

  • CSV
  • JSON
  • Excel
  • SQL

You can also create another table from the results, which is useful when a query produces a cleaned or aggregated dataset you want to keep working with inside the app instead of exporting and re-importing.

Practical notes

  • Everything runs locally. TextQuery is a desktop app for macOS and Windows, and the site states it neither records nor sends anything related to your usage. That matters if the data behind your chart is sensitive — you can query and visualize it without it leaving your machine.
  • No schema definition needed on import. You can bring in .xlsx, .xls, .csv, .tsv, .json, .jsonld, and compressed archives (.zip, .gz, .tgz, .tar) without writing code or commands, then query the resulting table.
  • Licensing. The site advertises a perpetual license with free updates rather than a subscription, and offers a free version with certain limitations plus a Pro upgrade. Check the pricing page for current terms, since the free tier's exact limits aren't spelled out in the material here.

If your goal is a quick chart from a local file — say, plotting monthly totals from a CSV — the flow is: import the file, write a SQL query that returns the aggregated rows, switch to the chart view, pick line or bar, set the title and colors, then either copy it to the clipboard or export it to a file.