Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Creating a Bar Chart in 7 Steps in Excel 2010 and Excel 2013

Creating a Bar Chart in 7

Steps in Excel

Only three types of Excel charts are presented in this blog. They are the area chart, the bar chart, and the scatterplot. There are, of course, many types of charts available in Excel and many variations of each type. This chapter will provide instructions on creating both the scatterplot and bar chart in Excel. Instructions to create an interactive area chart of a statistical distribution are presented at the beginning of the final chapter of this manual which covers graphing statistical distributions in Excel.

A bar chart is a chart with rectangular bars with lengths proportional to the values that they represent. Bars can be single, grouped, or stacked. Bar can be horizontal or vertical. This section will discuss how to create a bar chart that presents single, vertical bars. Single bars present the value of one variable that is associated with each data observation.

In this example this following bar chart will be created from the X-Y data in cells I4 to J8.

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

 

Bar Chart Step 1 –

Highlight the Y Data

Select the data in cells J4 to J8.

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph

 

Bar Chart Step 2 –

Select Chart Type

Make the following selections:

Insert tab / Column / 2-D Clustered Column

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

This produces the following basic bar chart:

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

 

Bar Chart Step 3 –

Insert X-Axis Data

Right-click anywhere in the chart and choose Select Data as follows:

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

This brings up the following dialogue box. Under the label Horizontal (Category) Axis Labels on the right side, select the Edit button.

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

This brings up a blank Axis Labels dialogue box as follows:

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

Select the X-Axis data in cells I4 to I8 as follows:

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

This produces the following labels for the X-Axis:

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

Format these labels by right-clicking on the X-Axis, select Bold, and then set the font size in the cell font dialogue box as follows:

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

This produces the following X-Axis:

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

 

Bar Chart Step 4 –

Delete the Legend

Select the legend and delete it.

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

 

Bar Chart Step 5 –

Insert Chart Title

Click anywhere on the chart to bring up the Chart Tools menu. Choose the Layout tab / Chart Title / Above Chart as follows:

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

This creates up the following basic chart title:

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

Highlight the text and type in the correct title as follows:

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

 

Bar Chart Step 6 –

Insert X-Axis Label

Right-click anywhere on the chart to bring up the Chart Tools menu. Choose Layout tab / Axis Titles / Primary Horizontal Axis / Title Below Axis as follows:

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

Highlight the basic X-Axis label that appears. Type in the correct X-Axis text, select Bold, and select the correct font size as follows:

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

 

Bar Chart Step 7 –

Insert Y-Axis Label

Right-click anywhere on the chart to bring up the Chart Tools menu. Choose Layout tab / Axis Titles / Primary Vertical Axis / Horizontal Title as follows:

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

After correcting the Y-Axis label by typing in the correct text, making it Bold, and setting the correct font size as was just done for the X-Axis label, the final bar graph will appear as follows:

excel, excel 2010, excel 2013, bar chart, chart graph, excel chart, excel graph(Click Image To See a Larger Version)

 

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4 comments:

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  2. Great stuff! Here's another guide where you can learn how to create a Gantt chart in Excel: https://spreadsheetdaddy.com/charts/gantt

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  3. Check out this guide on how to create a Gantt chart in Excel here

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