Tablizer

Convert JSON to PNG Online

Paste a JSON table below, edit it if you need to, and get PNG back. The conversion runs in your browser, so nothing is uploaded, there is no size limit and there is no signup.

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The only part of this site that uses a server. The address is sent to it so the page can be fetched, because a browser is not allowed to fetch someone else's page itself. Your own files are never involved.

Nothing here is uploaded. The parsing happens on this page.
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Paste or upload something above and it will appear here.
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The output will appear here once there is a table to convert.

What JSON is

JSON is a text format for nested data: objects with named keys, arrays, strings, numbers, booleans and null. It has no date type and no comments.

Every web API, most configuration files and anything that talks to JavaScript.

What PNG is

A lossless image format. Text and thin lines stay exactly as drawn, which is what a table is made of.

Slides, chat messages, issue trackers, and anywhere a table has to travel as a picture rather than as data.

What changes when you convert JSON to PNG

Four shapes all read correctly: an array of objects, an array of arrays with a header row, an object of column arrays, and an object keyed by row id. A single wrapper key holding the array, which is how most APIs reply, is unwrapped automatically. Nested objects are flattened one level into dotted keys; anything deeper is kept as JSON text in the cell, because a table cannot hold a tree.

The table is drawn from the data onto a canvas rather than captured from the page, so the whole thing comes out however long it is and however much of it is on screen. Column widths are measured from the content, alternating rows are shaded, and the scale is adjustable so a table for a slide or a print layout can be drawn at two or three times the size.

What carries over from JSON to PNG

JSON records 4 things about a table that PNG has no way to hold.

JSON knows which of its values are numbers. PNG keeps only their appearance, so nothing downstream can sort or sum them without someone reading them back off the image first.

An empty cell and a missing one are the same thing in PNG, so a null and an empty string in the JSON both come out blank and can no longer be told apart.

JSON can hold a value that is itself a list or an object. PNG has only flat cells, so nested values are flattened into one cell rather than being spread across columns.

PNG is the end of the line for this data. Reading the table back out of it is a separate and much harder problem than writing it, so keep the JSON if you will need the values again.

Questions

How do I convert JSON to PNG?

Paste your JSON into the box above or drop the file onto it. Check the table in the grid, then copy or download the PNG from the output panel. It takes one step and the data never leaves your browser.

Why did my zip code lose its leading zero?

Type inference turned the text 07030 into the number 7030. Tablizer leaves inference off by default for exactly this reason, and refuses to convert any value starting with a zero followed by a digit even when it is on.

Can I get the data back out of a PNG of a table?

Not without optical character recognition, which is a different kind of software with a different failure rate. An image of a table is pixels. If anyone downstream might want to sort or sum the numbers, send the table as well as the picture.

Can I convert the PNG back to JSON afterwards?

Not mechanically. PNG keeps how the table looks, not what it held, so going back means reading the values off the page again. Keep the JSON if you will need it.

Will my numbers still be numbers?

They will look the same, but PNG holds no values at all - only their appearance. Nothing can add up a column of a PNG without the numbers being read back out of it first.

What happens to nested values?

PNG has no nested cell, so a list or object inside a JSON value is flattened into a single cell rather than expanded into extra columns. Split it before converting if the parts need to be separate.

Is there a limit on file size?

No. The work happens on your own machine, so the limit is your machine's memory rather than an upload cap. A file with tens of thousands of rows converts in a second or two.

Is my data uploaded anywhere?

No. The parsing and generating are done by JavaScript running on this page. You can watch the network tab while you convert and see that nothing is sent.

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