These how-to articles walk you step-by-step through common annotation tasks in ChartNotes. Click a link below to access the instructions for that task.
How to Pin an Annotation on a SharpChart - Learn how to pin an annotation in place so it does not move with the bars on the chart over time.
How to Save a Chart from a Blog Article with the Author's Annotations - Learn how to retain someone else's chart annotations when saving their chart to your own ChartList.
When you save a chart from one of our blog articles, you can save it with or without the annotations added by the blog article. If you save the chart using the Save button at the top of the SharpCharts Workbench, all annotations will be erased, but if you open the chart in ChartNotes and save it from there, all of the author's annotations will be retained on your new saved chart.
This in-depth tutorial shows you how to save a blog author's SharpChart with the author's annotations. A bonus tutorial shows the process for saving the SharpChart without the author's annotations.
In this step-by-step tutorial, we'll save an annotated SharpChart from a recent Art's Charts article, along with the annotations added by Arthur Hill. This is what the chart looks like in the article, complete with annotations:
Click on the chart in the article to open it in the SharpCharts Workbench. Click the Annotate Button at the top right of the workbench. Do not save the chart first; click Annotate while the chart is still unsaved.
When you click the Annotate button, the chart will be launched in our annotation tool, ChartNotes. Click the Save button in the menu on the left side of ChartNotes.
Use the selected chart name or type in one of your own. Select the ChartList where you want to save the chart. Then click "Upload" to add the chart to your ChartList.
Saving the chart using this method will retain all of Arthur's annotations on the chart when it is saved to your ChartList.
In some cases, you may want to save the SharpChart from a blog article but not keep the blog author's annotations. Rather than deleting each annotation individually, use the following method to save the chart without any of the author's annotations.
Click on the chart in the article to open it in the SharpCharts Workbench. Click the Save Button at the top right of the workbench.
Use the selected chart name or type in one of your own. Select the ChartList where you want to save the chart. Then click "Save New Chart" to add the chart to your ChartList.
Saving the chart using this method will erase all the annotations.
Generally, annotations on your chart move to the left as more bars are added to your chart, keeping the annotations inline with the price bars. This is useful when you are using annotations to point out chart patterns, trendlines, areas of support/resistance, etc. Once enough bars are added that the chart pattern is off the left edge of the chart, the annotations should no longer be visible either.
For some annotations, however, you want the annotation to remain in its place on the chart, even as the bars move to the left of the chart and eventually move off the left edge of the chart. For example, if you have comments that describe the chart as a whole, that information is relevant all the time, and should not be not tied to a particular price bar.
The "pinning" feature of ChartNotes allows you to pin some annotations in place, so that they are always visible on the chart.
This in-depth tutorial takes you step-by-step through pinning both new and existing annotations, and shows you how both pinned and unpinned chart annotations move over time.
In this step-by-step tutorial, we'll pin both new and existing annotations on this chart of SPY.
You'll notice that it has a label in the lower indicator panel explaining that the panel is showing relative performance with the SPY/IWM ratio. This label should remain on the chart at all times, so we will pin it in place. We'll also add a new pinned label for the main price plot of the chart.
Click the Annotate Button at the top right of the workbench to launch ChartNotes and edit the annotations.
When you click the Annotate button, the chart will be launched in our annotation tool, ChartNotes. Choose the Selection tool in the menu on the left, then click on the SPY/IWM text annotation in the lower panel.
Once the annotation is selected, you will see a dotted line box around the text. The menu at the top will also change to show settings for that specific annotation.
To pin the annotation, click the pushpin icon in the menu at the top. It will be blue when the annotation is pinned and white when the annotation is not pinned.
Next we will add a brand new annotation and pin it.
Choose the "Note" tool in the menu on the left. Add a Note annotation to the chart. When annotations are first added, they are always unpinned, but you can change the setting as soon as the annotation is created.
Once the Note tool is pinned and you have changed the settings to what you want, click on the chart to add the Note annotation. Here we have added a pinned note that says SPY in a larger font. After it is created, the new annotation will remain selected. Click the "pin" button in the menu at the top to pin the annotation.
Be sure to save the chart when you are done making changes.
Here is the chart with an end date of February 13, 2025:
If you change the range of the chart so it has an end date a few months earlier, you can see that the unpinned annotations, which are tied to the price bars, have moved along with the price bars. Our two pinned annotations labelling the two panels of the chart remain in the same locations, regardless of the range shown on the chart.
Here is the chart in October 2024. The January 2025 cup with handle and its annotations are no longer on the screen, and a triangle annotation from April 2024 is now visible along with its annotations. But the two pinned labels ("SPY" in the main price plot and "SPY/IWM Ratio" in the lower panel) are still in exactly the same spot on the chart.
