Leather Charting Library

0.4.1 · active · verified Sun Mar 29

Leather is a Python charting library designed for quickly generating straightforward visualizations, often described as 'charting for 80% of humans.' It currently stands at version 0.4.1, with its last release in December 2025. The library focuses on ease of use and producing functional charts without extensive customization options.

Warnings

breaking With the release of version 0.4.1, official support for Python 3.8 and 3.9 was dropped. While the 'requires_python' metadata might be broader, the package classifiers for 0.4.1 explicitly list Python 3.10, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13, and 3.14. Installations on Python 3.8 or 3.9 may encounter issues or be unsupported.
Fix: Upgrade your Python environment to version 3.10 or newer to ensure compatibility and full support.
gotcha Leather is designed for quick and simple charting. Extensive customization of chart styles is neither expected nor officially recommended. Attempting deep customization may require direct manipulation of the generated SVG or significant workarounds.
Fix: Embrace the library's default aesthetic for rapid prototyping, or consider alternative libraries for highly customized or complex visual requirements.
gotcha When manually adjusting tick values using methods like `Chart.add_x_axis()` or `Chart.add_y_axis()`, the chart's scale is not automatically adjusted. This can result in custom tick labels falling outside the visible range of the rendered chart if not carefully aligned with the data bounds.
Fix: Ensure that any custom tick values you provide are consistent with the data range and the scales automatically (or manually) determined by the chart, or explicitly set the chart's `x_scale` and `y_scale`.

Install

pip install leather Standard Installation

Imports

leather
```
import leather
```
The primary module for interacting with the library.

Quickstart

This quickstart example demonstrates how to create a simple scatter plot with 100 random data points and apply a custom colorizing function based on the data values. The resulting chart is then saved as an SVG file.

import random
import leather

# Generate some random data
dot_data = [(random.randint(0, 250), random.randint(0, 250)) for i in range(100)]

# Define a colorizing function based on data values
def colorizer(d):
    return 'rgb(%i, %i, %i)' % (d.x, d.y, 150)

# Create a chart and add dots with custom colors
chart = leather.Chart('Colorized dots')
chart.add_dots(dot_data, fill_color=colorizer)

# Save the chart to an SVG file
chart.to_svg('colorized_dots.svg')
print("Chart saved to colorized_dots.svg")

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