Creating and Customizing Charts in Word Documents Using Python

A developer demonstrates how to create and customize charts in Word documents using Python with the Spire.Doc library. The article provides code examples for column, line, and pie charts, including setting titles, data series, and axis formats, enabling automated report generation.

Charts are essential tools for data visualization, transforming abstract numbers into intuitive graphical representations. Embedding charts in Word documents makes reports, proposals, and analysis documents more compelling. The traditional approach of manually inserting charts in Word and editing data one by one is inefficient and prone to inconsistency. By creating charts programmatically with Python, you can build an automated pipeline from data to documents, generating standardized reports with charts in batch. This article introduces how to create multiple chart types in Word documents using Python, including setting chart titles, data series, and axis formats. Compared to manual operation, the programmatic approach offers the following advantages: This article uses Spire.Doc for Python, which provides APIs for inserting and customizing charts in Word documents. pip install Spire.Doc After installation, you can import the relevant modules in your Python script and start working. Column charts are one of the most commonly used chart types, suitable for comparing values across categories. The following code demonstrates how to create a column chart with a data series: from spire.doc import outputFile = "ColumnChart.docx" Create a document and add a section document = Document section = document.AddSection Add descriptive text section.AddParagraph .AppendText "Column chart." Add a paragraph to host the chart newPara = section.AddParagraph Append a column chart with specified width and height shape = newPara.AppendChart ChartType.Column, float 500 , float 300 chart = shape.Chart Clear default data series chart.Series.Clear Add a custom data series chart.Series.Add "Test Series", "Word", "PDF", "Excel", "GoogleDocs", "Office" , float 1900000 , float 850000 , float 2100000 , float 600000 , float 1500000 Set Y-axis number format chart.AxisY.NumberFormat.FormatCode = " , 0" Save the document document.SaveToFile outputFile, FileFormat.Docx document.Dispose The generated Word document: Key steps in the code: AppendChart ChartType.Column, width, height method adds a chart shape to the paragraph and returns a chart shape object. Series.Add method accepts three parameters — series name, category list X-axis , and value list Y-axis . AxisY.NumberFormat.FormatCode sets the display format for Y-axis labels. " , 0" applies thousand separators.Line charts are ideal for showing trends over time or categories. The following code creates a line chart with multiple data series and a chart title: from spire.doc import outputFile = "LineChart.docx" document = Document section = document.AddSection section.AddParagraph .AppendText "Line chart." newPara = section.AddParagraph Append a line chart shape = newPara.AppendChart ChartType.Line, 500.0, 300.0 chart = shape.Chart Set chart title title = chart.Title title.Text = "My Chart" title.Show = True title.Overlay = True Add multiple data series seriesColl = chart.Series seriesColl.Clear categories = "C1", "C2", "C3", "C4", "C5", "C6" seriesColl.Add "AW Series 1", categories, 1.0, 2.0, 2.5, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0 seriesColl.Add "AW Series 2", categories, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 6.0, 6.5, 7.0 document.SaveToFile outputFile, FileFormat.Docx document.Dispose The generated Word document: Title settings explained: title.Text : Sets the title text content title.Show : Controls whether the title is displayed title.Overlay : When set to True , the title overlays the chart without taking up additional spacePie charts display the proportional relationship of parts to a whole. A pie chart requires only one data series: from spire.doc import outputFile = "PieChart.docx" document = Document section = document.AddSection section.AddParagraph .AppendText "Pie chart." newPara = section.AddParagraph Append a pie chart shape = newPara.AppendChart ChartType.Pie, 500.0, 300.0 chart = shape.Chart Add a data series chart.Series.Add "Test Series", "Word", "PDF", "Excel" , 2.7, 3.2, 0.8 document.SaveToFile outputFile, FileFormat.Docx document.Dispose The data series addition works the same way as with column charts. ChartType.Pie specifies the chart type as a pie chart. Scatter charts show the correlation between two sets of data, while bubble charts add a third dimension to represent data weight. Scatter chart : from spire.doc import outputFile = "ScatterChart.docx" document = Document section = document.AddSection section.AddParagraph .AppendText "Scatter chart." newPara = section.AddParagraph Append a scatter chart shape = newPara.AppendChart ChartType.Scatter, 450.0, 300.0 chart = shape.Chart chart.Series.Clear Add a data series with X and Y value lists chart.Series.Add "Scatter chart", 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 , 1.0, 20.0, 40.0, 80.0, 160.0 document.SaveToFile outputFile, FileFormat.Docx document.Dispose Bubble chart : from spire.doc import outputFile = "BubbleChart.docx" document = Document section = document.AddSection section.AddParagraph .AppendText "Bubble chart." newPara = section.AddParagraph Append a bubble chart shape = newPara.AppendChart ChartType.Bubble, float 500 , float 300 chart = shape.Chart chart.Series.Clear Add a data series with X, Y, and bubble size lists chart.Series.Add "Test Series", 2.9, 3.5, 1.1, 4.0, 4.0 , 1.9, 8.5, 2.1, 6.0, 1.5 , 9.0, 4.5, 2.5, 8.0, 5.0 document.SaveToFile outputFile, FileFormat.Docx document.Dispose The key difference lies in the number of parameters passed to Series.Add : scatter charts take X and Y lists, while bubble charts take an additional third list for bubble sizes. 3D surface charts are suitable for displaying the three-dimensional distribution of multivariate data. The following code creates a surface chart with three data series: from spire.doc import outputFile = "Surface3DChart.docx" document = Document section = document.AddSection section.AddParagraph .AppendText "Surface3D chart." newPara = section.AddParagraph Append a 3D surface chart shape = newPara.AppendChart ChartType.Surface3D, 500.0, 300.0 chart = shape.Chart chart.Series.Clear Set title chart.Title.Text = "My chart" Add multiple data series categories = "Word", "PDF", "Excel", "GoogleDocs", "Office" chart.Series.Add "Series 1", categories, 1900000.0, 850000.0, 2100000.0, 600000.0, 1500000.0 chart.Series.Add "Series 2", categories, 900000.0, 50000.0, 1100000.0, 400000.0, 250000.0 chart.Series.Add "Series 3", categories, 500000.0, 820000.0, 1500000.0, 400000.0, 100000.0 document.SaveToFile outputFile, FileFormat.Docx document.Dispose By adding multiple data series, the surface chart can simultaneously display the 3D distribution of multiple data groups, making it suitable for comparative analysis. In practice, you can encapsulate chart creation in a function to quickly add multiple charts to a single document: python def create chart document, chart type, title, categories, values : section = document.AddSection section.AddParagraph .AppendText title para = section.AddParagraph shape = para.AppendChart chart type, 500.0, 300.0 chart = shape.Chart chart.Series.Clear chart.Title.Text = title chart.Title.Show = True chart.Series.Add "Data", categories, values return chart Usage example doc = Document create chart doc, ChartType.Column, "Quarterly Sales", "Q1", "Q2", "Q3", "Q4" , 120.0, 150.0, 180.0, 200.0 create chart doc, ChartType.Line, "Monthly Growth Trend", "Jan", "Feb", "Mar", "Apr", "May", "Jun" , 10.0, 15.0, 22.0, 28.0, 35.0, 42.0 doc.SaveToFile "Report.docx", FileFormat.Docx doc.Dispose After encapsulating chart creation as a function, you can quickly add various chart types to the same document, which is useful for generating comprehensive reports with multiple data views. For large numerical data, setting axis number formats improves readability: Thousand separator format chart.AxisY.NumberFormat.FormatCode = " , 0" Percentage format chart.AxisY.NumberFormat.FormatCode = "0%" Thousand separator with decimal places chart.AxisY.NumberFormat.FormatCode = " , 0.00" This article covered the complete workflow for creating charts in Word documents using Python, including six chart types: column, line, pie, scatter, bubble, and 3D surface charts. Key takeaways: AppendChart ChartType, width, height to append a chart to a paragraph, specifying the chart type via the ChartType enum chart.Series.Add — the number of parameters varies by chart type scatter charts need X/Y lists, bubble charts need X/Y/size lists chart.Title chart.AxisY.NumberFormat.FormatCode With these skills, you can integrate chart creation into report generation pipelines, automatically producing Word documents with visualized charts from business data, significantly improving the efficiency and consistency of data report generation.