Figures, charts and tables

Canto draws numbers and structure as pictures: charts, ten kinds of figure, and tables that read their own numbers. A model can write them into an answer or a note, and you can add them yourself from the "/" menu. They're drawn on your Mac, look the same in the chat and in the note saved from it, and go with the note when you export or publish it.

Charts#

/ › Chart inserts a starter chart. Point at it for its toolbar:

• Bar, line, pie or scatter switches how it's drawn.
• Edit data opens the chart's editor: a Caption, Bars across for a bar chart, a row per point with its label and value, and Add row.
• Bind to: takes the numbers from Table 1, Table 2 and so on in the same note, or from a research note's Evidence ledger. The chart then says where its data comes from.

Charts a model writes draw even when the model wrote them loosely: with comments, trailing commas, curly quotes, values such as "60%" or "$1,200", or as donut, area or horizontal bar charts. A chart that still can't be drawn shows its numbers as a small table instead of raw code. While a model is still writing one, the chat says Drawing the chart….

A caption sits under every chart and figure in the same quiet type, numbered the same way in the chat, the note, a PDF and a published page.

The ten figure kinds#

Each kind is a row in the "/" menu (under Blocks). Choosing one inserts an example you can edit.

In Ask's narrow panel each kind takes a narrow form: key numbers two across, a timeline without its descriptions, steps in one column.

The what-if calculator is arithmetic Canto does itself. Nothing in the answer runs as code, and moving a slider doesn't change the note. A published page or an export shows the starting values.

Writing a figure in Markdown#

A figure is a fenced block whose language is its kind, with one row per line and cells split by |. An optional first line title: … is the caption. For example:

```stats
title: The plan at a glance
1M | Context window | all four models [1]
5–8 | Tickets at once | in parallel
```

Markdown you import with figures in it becomes figures right away, and exporting a note to Markdown writes them back the same way.

Editing a figure#

Point at a figure and press its edit key, or select it and press ↩. A panel opens under it with:

• Kind, to switch to another kind with the same rows,
• the rows as text, with a line under them for anything Canto couldn't read,
• a live preview,
• Show as code, which turns the figure back into the code block it came from.

Done (⌘↩) applies everything as one undo step; Cancel (Esc) leaves the figure as it was. If the rows don't make that kind of figure yet, the note shows them as a table until they do.

Citations in a figure, like [1] at the end of a row, are numbered with the note's References and jump to them.

How Canto checks the numbers#

The model picks the shape; Canto checks the numbers. When a figure appears in an answer, Canto looks for each of its numbers in the answer and in the sources it cites. A line under the figure says what it found:

A figure you edit by hand is yours: Canto stops checking it, and the line goes.

Figures in research notes#

After a research note is written, Canto asks the model, section by section (up to five sections), whether a key-numbers row, a timeline, a scorecard or another figure would help. It keeps a figure only when every number in it appears in that section or its sources. The save says "Adding figures · 2 of 5" while it works.

Turn this off in Settings › Assistant › Research › Add figures to research notes. In Small Mac mode it stays off for models on your Mac. See Research and research notes.

Smart tables#

Every table reads its own numbers, in the chat, in notes (older ones too) and on published pages:

• A bar behind each value, scaled to its column.
• The best value in a column tinted: the lowest price, cost, latency or size; the highest score, accuracy or speed. A column that could read either way, such as "8K Context (GB)", isn't tinted.
• ✓, ✗, yes, no and partial drawn as marks.
• The first column names the rows and is left as written.

None of this changes the note: it's drawn over the table, and the text stays exactly as you typed it. To turn it off for one table, choose Plain table in the table's row or column menu.

Everywhere a note goes#

• Export. HTML and PDF draw figures, charts and smart tables. Markdown keeps charts as ```chart blocks and figures as their fences. See Import and export.
• Publishing. Figures and charts publish as drawings, in your palette, in light and dark. See Publishing a page.
• Search. Search, search by meaning and Ask's reading of a note include a figure's rows.
• Copying. A figure copied from a chat answer pastes into a note as a figure.