Make SWOT analyses from text

swot Tortuga Rum Co.
tag Priority as p
  High red
  Low gray
active-tag Priority

strengths
  Oldest distillery still on the island p: Low
  Crew of 40 sworn tasters
    Trained in three ports
  Secret recipe, aged in cannon-scarred oak
weaknesses
  One barrel supplier p: High
  Thin margins on every cask
  No presence beyond the Caribbean p: High
opportunities
  Navy rum ration contract
    Open for tender each spring
  Rising demand for spiced rum in northern ports p: Low
  Tavern partnerships along the trade routes
threats
  Royal Navy blockade p: High
  Cheap imitations from rival islands
  Rising cost of sugar cane

Overview

A SWOT analysis sorts what you know about an organisation, product or plan into four fixed panels: strengths and weaknesses (internal, within your control) and opportunities and threats (external, outside it). Reach for it at the start of a business plan, a strategy review or a launch decision, when the question is “where do we stand?” rather than “what do we do next?”. The grid is always 2×2 with strengths top-left, weaknesses top-right, opportunities bottom-left and threats bottom-right, whatever order you write the sections in. Each list is a judgement, not a measurement. The chart does not score, weight or rank items, and it does not pair them into strategies (the TOWS matrix is out of scope).

When to use

• swot — you are listing internal strengths and weaknesses against external opportunities and threats, in prose-length items.
• quadrant — you want to place items by judgement on two axes you name, not fill four fixed panels.

Syntax

swot Title
// optional directives: tag, active-tag, palette, x-label, y-label, no-axes, no-tint-items

strengths|weaknesses|opportunities|threats [Label] [color]
  Item text [key: value]
    Optional detail line

• A section line sits at indent 0. The keyword is case-insensitive. An optional label replaces the default name, and an optional trailing colour replaces the default.
• An item is indented under a section. One more indent level adds a smaller, muted detail line. Going deeper is an error.
• Sections may appear in any order and are always drawn S W / O T.
• A leading - on an item is dropped, so pasted bullet lists work.
• A colour word at the end of an item stays in the text: Margins are in the red reads as written.
• Colons and commas inside an item are literal unless the part before the colon is a declared tag alias.

Labels and colours

Give a section its own label and colour on the section line. The colour must be last and comes from the palette.

swot Navire marchand
strengths Forces teal
  Équipage expérimenté
weaknesses Faiblesses orange
  Un seul fournisseur
opportunities Occasions purple
  Nouveau contrat avec la marine
threats Menaces red
  Blocus naval

Axes

The grid is framed by two axes, drawn as the headers of a table: a band over each column and a rail beside each row. Columns default to Helpful, Harmful and rows to Internal, External, which is the textbook SWOT matrix. Rename them with x-label and y-label, each a comma-separated pair, or hide them with no-axes, which wins over both label options.

swot Launch review
x-label Works for us, Works against us
y-label Inside, Outside
strengths
  Small, fast team
weaknesses
  No marketing budget
opportunities
  Competitor just raised prices
threats
  Platform fee change

swot Quick take
no-axes
strengths
  Loyal crew
weaknesses
  Leaky hull
opportunities
  Rich shipping lane
threats
  Rival fleet

Tags

Declare a tag, then add key: value to an item to recolour its dot, tint its row faintly in the tag colour, and show a legend. Items without a tag keep their section colour and no tint. no-tint-items turns the row tint off and leaves just the dot. Header bands always keep the section colour. Set active-tag to pick which tag drives the colours.

tag Priority as p
  High red
  Low gray
active-tag Priority

Directives

Validation

Layout

The chart stays 2×2 at any width and scales as a whole. Long text wraps and panels grow: a row takes the height of its tallest panel while both columns stay equal. Nothing is truncated.

Appearance

Every chart accepts the universal appearance directives:

Colors come from the active palette — see Colors. Set the palette and light/dark theme at render time with --palette <name> and --theme light|dark|transparent.

Next

• Related: quadrant
• Then: Colors & palettes