In this article, we’ll create a bar chart in Excel. Microsoft Excel allows you to create bar charts, histograms, pie charts, and many more types of graphical representations of your tabular data.
Steps to create a bar chart in Excel
Let’s get started with this step-by-step guide to creating a bar chart for tabular data in Excel.
1. Prepare a tabular database
You need to prepare a tabular database in order to create a bar graph for it. Let us take an example of a tabular database here-
2. Creating a bar chart
We are looking forward to creating a systematic bar chart for this sales data here. Let’s see how we can do this-
- Select any cell in the data range.
- Go to Insert.
- Under Charts group, select on the bar chart icon.
- Select any bar chart type that you want to apply.
You can see that Excel has automatically adjusted the data and created a systematic bar graph for you, like this-
You can alter the bar graph settings to format the bar graph the way you want it.
- Click on the bar graph.
- Click on the green plus icon above called Chart Element.
- Check the chart elements to view them on the chart and uncheck the ones you don’t want to view.
Customizing a bar chart
To customize a bar chart in terms of its color and style, you must-
- Click on the bar chart.
- Click on the paintbrush icon to view the style and color variants of the chart.
- Select the style you like under the Style tab.
- Choose the color combination you like under the Color tab.
This is how our fully customized bar chart looks like now-
Another way to change the style and color of a bar chart is by going to the Design tab that is available only when a bar chart is selected and selecting your desired style and color.
Conclusion
This was a complete step-by-step tutorial about creating a bar chart and customizing it completely. If you have any doubts regarding creating bar charts in Excel, drop a comment below and we will get back with an answer for all your queries!