Datylon Reviews

Datylon is easy to use for those of us in the design industry, who are more visually trained. It is much quicker and easier to use than Power BI, and the graphic results are far more pleasing.

As all data has to be prepared prior to using Datylon, it can get a bit messy as it is not being drawn from one source. However, this also makes it simpler to use. It is disappointing that you cannot customize the icons (in the icons graphs) at present.

I love that I can easily create charts and update the info much more simpler than in the Illustrator chart creation tool. This plug-in is very robust and can do things which not only save a lot of time, like resizing the charts while having the fonts stay the same size, but also enables me to have more control in the design process while creating clear and precise data visualization assets. The more I use it the easier it gets but I can see that it is capable of doing so much more than I utilize it for. I highly recommend Datylon to anyone that needs to create charts for Data Visualization.

There's a bit of a learning curve but I've been able to figure out most things thru trial and error and when I can't figure something out the help desk is very helpful in solving the problems.

Datylon is hands down the best chart great and data visualization tool on the market that works seamlessly with Adobe Illustrator. You can easily resize a chart, and the text does not distort or change size. You can duplicate a chart. You can connect multiple charts to one data sheet so you can easily update the data across all your charts. Almost everything is customizable. And the icing on top is that you can also upload your charts and files to the Datylon platform and create templates to reuse over and over.

Occasionally I do find I want to make a specific customization and that isn't available, but usually there is a work around or another way to solve. I do wish you could create a hyperlink text box on the online platform so that templates can have clickable links.

Copying charts with the same design elements makes a purchase of Datylon outweigh the costs.

It would be nice to find a way to make each chart 's x and y grid lines appear uniform automatically in instances when charts with drastically different x and y values are copied to duplicate visual elements. This is ENTIRELY POSSIBLE MANUALLY.

Datylon allows us to create branded charts and graphs within Illustrator, with far fewer headaches than if we solely used Illustrator's built in tools. We are able to control the look and feel of the charts while maintaining editability.

There is a bit of a learning curve with Datylon that we had to work through. It doesn't act like an Adobe product, and isn't quite as intuitive. The data fields also don't quite act like Excel, so it took few beats to remember that hitting tab won't move the curser to the next cell. Remembering which menu controlled the look of which element took some time as well. But once we picked up on the way everything works, it has been MUCH better than what we were doing before.

If there is a graph you need to create, Datylon can do it. The types of graphs and customizations for these graphs are nearly limitless.

I really struggled to figure out a couple of basic features: it would be great if there were a way to create a histogram from a single column of data. I could not figure out how to do this. You need to create a "count" spreadsheet separately with a linear scale (1,2,3,4,5) according to the bins you want, then hide the x-axis of the resulting graph.I recognize this requires Datylon to perform math/calculations, but it sure would be helpful.Second, I have not figured out how to set the "zero" point for a diverging bar chart - the category/value that separates left and right sides of the chart. I'm wondering if it would be helpful to have, by graph type, a tab with feature settings particular to that graph type. It would clarify which options are available.

This was a game changer for creating charts and other data visuals that were correct in terms of data and the ease of implementation of client branding.

I wish there was a way to save brand assets ie: swatches, fonts, and overall create styles that can be saved.

Thank you so much, Jamie! And thanks for the suggestions. We acknowledge this could be an important improvement to our plug-in. Right now, we are working on some more architectural changes, but we will definitely pick it up later. The Datylon Team

SO Flexible. You don’t have to start over every time new data comes in. With Illustrator, you practically have to start from scratch every time. With Datylon, once the design is set, all you do is change the numbers. Pays for itself after the first job.

It’s not really a con, but the interface is pretty complicated. That’s understandable given what it does. But once you get it down, everything cruises.

Functionality, features, and plugin capability with Illustrator. There's a wide variety of templates to choose from, and customization is robust.

There's a learning curve in terms of understanding how to implement data (X v Y data, etc.). I use Datylon in fits and starts so I basically have to relearn the program each time there's a downtime between uses.

How easy it is to use. I was able to produce a chart in a matter of minutes. Charts that normally took a long time in illustrator.

The data import feature. It is very difficult to manipulate the data within the program. Not an actual spreadsheet. A simple copy and paste ability would be nice.

Hi Ryan, Thanks for the review! We do support copy and past of data, so if your are struggling with it, feel free to book a call using this link: https://www.datylon.com/book-a-demo-session The Datylon Team.

Being able to easily resize a graph's height and width instantly.

There are certainly kinks to work out, especially having to remove all commas (,) from numbers when inserting data.

Hi Caycee, Thanks for the review! You can format, like using commas as thousand separators, in the formatting tab. See more info here: https://help.datylon.com/tutorials/format-incoming-data, or feel free to book a call to discuss the details: https://www.datylon.com/book-a-demo-session

I was on a design project that required a lot ofcharts, graphs, and other data visualization. Illustrator's built in tools are very lacking. Loved how many different chart types Datylon had out of the box. Gives designers a lot of options.

It's missing an undo feature. I messed something up, and it gives me an error in the plug-in screens but I have no idea where to fix it. Still displays the way i want so I just live with it. Also its a little hard to navigate and understand where the various settings I need are. Really needs contextual tool tips to help explain what everything does (with visual examples).

Hi Jeff, Thanks for the review! Some of the requests you have are already possible today and described in the Help Center (help.datylon.com). But feel free to book a call to discuss it using this link: https://www.datylon.com/book-a-demo-session or reach out to getsupport@datylon.com.

I like that it has a lot of customization features (still would love to have much more options!). Once you set up a template of a graph, exchanging data is extremely easy.

My problem is really specific - round graphs and text labels just don't work - if you want to make everything readible and lookind nice you have to add your labels seperately which is extremely annoying.

We've loved how it has increased our productivity by connecting our datasets with Datylon. We have created a seamless workflow between designer and engineers that have allowed us better understand us.

We did not like the possibility of saving our custom designs for the rest of the team and the absence of a basic table and the possibility of connecting the plug in to a live server.

Dear Emilio, Thanks for the review and the suggestions. Saving design styling is definitely on our to do list. For the connection to a live server, feel free to reach out and we might be able to help you with that. Tip: Most users do use Datylon heatmaps to make tables.

I love the options that Datylon gives me for reporting. The information I need to share each week is pretty boring so the fact that a spread sheet can become a beautiful report that clients WANT to read is amazing!

I would love to see a way to really customize icons, right now I feel like there are a lot of hoops to jump through. It would be great to see a rounded version of a heat map as well.

It is great product to design graphs in Illustrator. Perfect for long and complex publication. Very easy to update data when needed.

It lacks some minor feature (like mixed graphs) and InDesign or Adobe Libraries integrations.

Hi Piotr, Thanks for the review. If you mean with mixed graphs something like combo charts, you can do this fairly easy with the Datylon plugin. See an example in our help Center: https://help.datylon.com/tutorials/combine-multiple-charts-in-illustrator

I'm a long-time illustrator user, and while Illustrator has features for graphing and charts, they're neither particularly well implemented or extensive in terms of what they can produce. Having tried dozens of online trials for graphing software, and even subscribed to a few for some time, I eventually happened upon Datylong and the basics quickly over the course of one full-on, frenzied job for a particularly exacting client. The results were superb, and frankly, the ability to revisit Datylon charts within Illustrator, and quickly tweak parameters, absolutely saved me from many agonising hours Illustrator editing.

Datylon has a learning curve. However, all good software does. One great thing though, is that each time you solve a problem and create something you like, you can easily reuse your old work, or use it as the basis for the next project, improving on it or using it as the jumping-off point for something a little different.

I like the easy merge of data sources and the customization of the chart chosen

I don't like the possibility to switch from one chart type to another without losing the visual style that I have defined.

Natively design charts using easy-to-use panels. Being able to import any CSVs and select the columns intended for different fields, together with a huge collection of charts, makes it easy to create charts that can be used for final delivery. What makes things extra nice is that the color palettes can use swatches directly from the Illustrator Swatch Library — so it means that it’s possible to set a global color in Illustrator and have it reflected in multiple places. This makes organizing and editing complex charts easier.

When the chart has many data points (e.g. scatter plot with thousands of values), performance can suffer a bit (both in the render and the UI). This might have to do with the UI not being native and so a lot of things are done behind the scene to render the advanced layout. It doesn’t affect most of the charts I create though so I’m still happy with it. But if this can be improved, I would use it on a lore more charts with complex visualizations.

Hi See-ming, Thanks for the extensive and useful feedback! Performance is important so do not hesitate to contact our support team via getsupport@datylon.com and send us some samples for benchmarking. It might help us to optimize the performance. The Datylon Team.

Tool that completes illustrator on a topic where illustrator (and all the other adobe products) are missing out on.

Could be budggy, but it's also beiging fixed everytime rappidly. Color management is not possible (cmyk / RGB)

Thanks Esther for the review. It is a fairly new product so some bugs are not intercepted by our and Adobe's quality assurance process, but I'm sure you will see less of those bugs as we grow more mature. The Datylon Team.

The best thing about Datylon is the incredible level of customization that is possible for every chart. It's great that you can manually adjust the size of a chart and the entire chart will automatically resize, it's easy to change colors, font sizing, data point positioning, labels, etc. Occasionally you get to a point where you need to expand the chart and manually adjust something, but if you put the time in, you can usually find an option to adjust almost anything in your chart.

There are a few things that could be improved. The first is the constant updates of Datylon that are not incredibly well communicated to users. My colleague and I often find that Datylon will stop working (usually the editor will not appear or function) and we realize that there has been an update that we need to install and then restart our computers to activate. Fewer updates and better communication...

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Dear Anneke, Thanks for the nice review and constructive comments! Regarding the frequent updates, we are always (overly?) eager to release new features and some users are waiting on specific fixes, hence the frequent updates. But we'll keep it in mind. Regarding the communication, we send out service emails to all our users about the updates. So we need to investigate how to improve there. Feel free to contact us about that on getsupport@datylon.com. Ease of use and maps are definitely on our mid term roadmap. The Datylon Team.

The amount of customization along with the number of various chart/graph types were a huge selling point for us. That paired with how quickly we're able to create these custom graphs made this a no brainer, and an absolutely indispensable tool for us. We wouldn't be able to produce such nicely designed graphs and charts so quickly without Datylon.

The few things that I thought were odd that was left out has since been addressed. Which brings me to my next point: the Datylon team is incredible. They actually listen to feedback and come out with community-requested features fairly frequently throughout the year. So even if I were to think of another downside, I'd just bring it to their attention, and I'm fairly confident they'd look into that for future release updates.

Hi Josh, Thanks for the review and the nice words! Keep sending us your improvement requests. We, and in the end our other users, appreciate your input! The Datylon Team.

The ability to revise and edit the data, and have it automatically update in the chart. Shared data sets for different charts, easy to duplicate charts using different subsets of the data for comparison. I love the ability to set custom colours through the sheet.

It's *very* slow. Edit something, anything, and it takes at least a second to reflect that change on the artboard. In addition, many of the settings for text font/colour/placement/alignment etc. are very fiddly and unintuitive. So there is a lot of trial and error till you get things looking the way you want them to. And then, there's no way to save styles or presets - so if I'm making a new chart...

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Dear Jonno, Thanks for the review! Your remarks make a lot of sense and most, if not all, are on our roadmap. Some will require quite some development time, but we keep on working hard to improve our product. I'm only concerned about the low performance. That is not reported by other users and we see realtime rendering of the charts during testing. If you want, we can have a look at it. Just send a mail to getsupport@datylon.com or book a call using this link: https://help.datylon.com/meetings/stijn-simoens The Datylon Team

Note: I’m a Datylon user in Adobe Illustrator environment. Datylon is great for big report projects: once you have set up your graph, you can apply it to several sets of data without any annoying “reset” issues from the Illustrator Graph tool.

The software lacks in consistency of features among the several graph types, especially the “Data label” feature, available only for Line graphs. I’ve been able to work this out by applying a Line graph w/data labels over Candle graphs, but it meant losing a lot of time in setting up both spreadsheets and Datylon graphs; some easy tweaks are not available (i.e.: in Data Labels, it will automatically delete leading zeros, even if the source data is set as text, and you can’t switch it off); in order to solve these issues, you need a good knowledge in both spreadsheet and Illustrator softwares.

Hi Alexandros, Great to read you classify us as a "must have". But we acknowledge there is always room for improvement. We do have data labels on all our charts. But we are eager to hear what does not work for you so we can fix it. Don't hesitate to contact us via chat on our website or via getsupport@datylon.com The Datylon Team

Handig men kan kiezen hoe de cijfers van de datalabels worden gevisualiseerd, (komma, punt, afronding na de komma…). Kan overweg met verschillende 'schrijfwijzen' van data bij de input (vb. negeert een %-teken). De mogelijkheden om grafieken te stylen zijn ook zeer uitgebreid.

Als grafisch ontwerper ben ik niet gewend om te werken met datavisualisatie. Het heeft even geduurd voor ik men weg vond, maar dankzij de voorbeelden is het gelukt. Bij het copy-pasten naar indesign loopt het soms wel mis, dan verspringen er soms wat cijfers.