how to use microsoft excel to make a bar graph

This chart is comparing the current year's sales of different products. They are extremely versatile and can be used to compare data, to see progress toward a goal, percentage contribution, the distribution of data and actuals against target scenarios.īelow is a classic column chart.

Column charts provide advanced options that are not available with some other chart types such as trendlines and adding a secondary axis.

There are a huge number of formatting options available with column charts.

This makes them a sensible option as you want others to understand what you are presenting.

Users are more familiar with column charts than some of the other chart types.

You can create a column chart in just a few clicks. If the linked chart isn’t open when the chart is updated in Excel, I open PowerPoint, select the chart, click the CHART TOOLS DESIGN tab and click Refresh Data.įor more information, see the course summary, and experiment some more with PowerPoint.Here are five reasons why column charts are so great: If I have the linked copy of the chart open in PowerPoint, it updates automatically. Now, Actual expenses exceed the Projected ones, as reflected in the orange bar for that quarter. In QTR4, Actual expenses, I’ll double-click the cell, change it from $100 to $138, and press Enter. How about this one, Style 3.īack in the original Excel chart, let’s say I update the chart. Next, let’s click the CHART TOOLS DESIGN tab, and in Chart Styles, point to other possible styles for the chart. To position the chart, I’ll point to an edge and drag the four-pointed arrow cursor, eyeballing the placement for now. We can click X to close the Format Chart Area pane. Then, for Scale Height, I’ll increase the percentage to 175, and press Enter. In the Size group, I’ll click the Size and Position arrow, and I’ll check Lock aspect ratio. To make it larger, I’ll leave it selected and click the CHART TOOLS FORMAT tab. I’ll choose the third option, Use Destination Theme & Link Data. The second two options link the chart, either using the destination theme or keeping the source formatting.

The first two will embed the chart, either using the destination theme or keeping the source formatting. In PowerPoint, display the destination slide and right-click it. To do that, when you are ready to copy the chart, right-click it, and click Copy to copy it to the Clipboard. One way to insert a bar chart into PowerPoint is to create the chart in Excel and copy it, keeping a link to the original, if you want.

How to use microsoft excel to make a bar graph