Annotate and animate
Annotations in Kitegraph are part of the chart itself, so they render identically in the editor, the embed, the video, and every image export. The Annotate and Animate tabs on the Visualize step hold all of it.
Text notes and connectors
A text note places free-standing text anywhere on the chart. With a connector, it draws a leader line to the point it refers to. Both ends drag in the preview, and the dragged position is what publishes.
Highlight ranges
A highlight range shades a band of the x-axis: a recession, a policy window, a season. Value-axis bands are also available for marking a target zone or threshold.
Timeline events
An event pins a label to a data point: a date on a series. It is anchored to the data rather than the canvas, so it stays on the line when the axis rescales or new periods arrive. On an animated chart the leader draws in and the label types out as the playhead reaches the date.
Animation
Animation is a reveal: the chart draws itself in over a set duration. Each chart type has its own reveal (lines sweep, bars grow, pies open clockwise, maps step through years), and the transport under the preview scrubs it while you work.
- Static or animated. One switch. Static charts publish as still embeds; animated ones play their reveal once when scrolled into view.
- Duration. Most charts read well between 4 and 8 seconds.
- Axis growth. An axis can expand with the data as it reveals instead of standing at its final extent.
- Year counter and running total. Large muted readouts behind the data that follow the playback.
- Per-annotation reveal. On animated charts, each annotation has a Reveal slider setting when it appears.
Render parity
The preview, the published embed, the MP4, the GIF, and the still exports all render from the same definition, frame by frame. Timing set in the preview is the timing everywhere else.