How to Create a Bar Chart in Excel
Along with pie charts, bar charts are one of the most commonly used chart types. They are simple to create and easy to understand. What type of data are bar charts best suited for? Any numerical data you want to compare, such as numbers, percentages, temperatures, frequencies, or other measurements. Typically, you create a bar chart to compare individual values in different data categories. A specific type of bar chart called a Gantt chart is often used in project management programs. A bar chart is a graph that displays different data categories with rectangular bars, where the length of the bars is proportional to the size of the data category they represent. Bar charts can be drawn vertically or horizontally.
1 How to make a bar graph
Creating a bar chart in Excel is as easy as it gets. Simply select the data you want to plot in your chart, go to the Insert tab / Charts group on the ribbon, and then click the type of bar chart you want to insert.
In this example, we create the standard 2D bar chart: 
The default 2D clustered bar chart inserted into your Excel spreadsheet will look like this: 
The Excel bar chart above displays one data series because our source data only contains one column of numbers.
If your source data has two or more columns of numeric values, your Excel bar chart will contain multiple data series , each shaded a different color: 
2 Show all available bar chart types
To see all the bar chart types available in Excel, click the More column charts… link and choose one of the bar chart subtypes displayed at the top of the Insert Chart window : 
3 Choose the layout and style of the bar chart
If you are not completely satisfied with the default layout or style of the bar chart inserted in your Excel sheet, select it to activate the Chart Tools tabs on the ribbon. After that, go to the Create Chart and do one of the following:
- Try different bar chart layouts by clicking the Quick Layout button in the Chart Layouts group , or
- Experiment with different bar chart styles in the Chart Styles group .
When creating a bar chart in Excel, you can choose one of the following bar chart subtypes.
Clustered bar charts
A clustered bar chart in Excel (2D or 3-D) compares values across data categories. In a clustered bar chart, categories are typically arranged along the vertical axis (Y-axis) and values along the horizontal axis (X-axis). A 3-D clustered bar chart does not feature a third axis , but rather presents horizontal rectangles in a 3-D format. 
Stacked bar charts
A stacked bar chart in Excel shows the proportion of individual items to the whole. In addition to grouped bar charts, a stacked bar chart can be drawn in 2D and 3D formats: 
100% Stacked Bar Charts
This type of bar chart is similar to the type above, but it displays the percentage contribution of each value to a total in each data category. 
Cylinder, cone, and pyramid graphs
Like standard rectangular Excel bar charts, cone, cylinder, and pyramid charts are available in clustered, stacked, and 100 % stacked types. The only difference is that these chart types represent data series as cylinders, cones, and pyramids instead of bars. 
In Excel 2010 and earlier, you can create a cylinder, cone, or pyramid chart in the usual way, by selecting the corresponding chart type in the Charts group on the Insert tab .
When creating a bar chart in Excel 2013, Excel 2016, or Excel 2019, you won’t find the cylinder, cone, or pyramid chart types in the Charts group on the ribbon. According to Microsoft, these chart types were removed because there were too many chart choices in earlier versions of Excel, making it difficult for the user to choose the right chart type. And yet, there is a way to draw a cylinder, cone, or pyramid chart in modern versions of Excel; it just takes a few extra steps.
4 Creating a Cylinder, Cone, and Pyramid Chart in Excel 2013, 2016, and 2019
To create a cylinder, cone, or pyramid chart in Excel 2019, 2016, and 2013, create a 3D bar chart of your preferred type (grouped, stacked, or 100% stacked) in the usual way, and then change the shape type as follows:
- Select all the bars on your chart, right-click them, and choose Format Data Series… from the context menu. Or, simply double-click the bars.
- In the Format Data Series… pane , under Series Options , select the desired column shape .
If you have multiple data series plotted in your Excel bar chart, you may need to repeat the steps above for each series.
5 Customizing Bar Charts
Like other Excel chart types, bar charts allow for a lot of customization when it comes to the chart title, axes, data labels, and more.
5.1 Change bar width and bar spacing
When you create a bar chart in Excel, the default settings are such that there is plenty of space between the bars. To widen the bars and bring them closer together, follow these steps. The same method can be used to narrow the bars and increase the spacing between them. In 2D bar charts, the bars can even overlap.
- In your Excel bar chart, right-click any data series (the bars) and choose Format Data Series… from the context menu.
- In the Format Data Series pane , under Series Options , do one of the following.
- In 2D and 3D bar charts, to change the bar width and the spacing between data categories, drag the Gap Width slider or enter a percentage between 0 and 500 in the box. The lower the value, the smaller the gap between bars and the thicker the bars, and vice versa.
- In 2D bar charts, to change the spacing between data series within a data category , drag the Series Overlap slider or enter a percentage between -100 and 100 in the box. The higher the value, the more the bars overlap. A negative number will result in spacing between data series as in the following screenshot:
5.2 Create Excel bar charts with negative values
When creating a bar chart in Excel, the source values don’t have to be greater than zero. Typically, Excel has no problem displaying negative numbers on a standard bar chart, but the default chart inserted into your spreadsheet may leave a lot to be desired in terms of layout and formatting: 
To make the bar chart above look better, you can firstly move the vertical axis labels to the left so they don’t cover the negative bars, and secondly, you can consider using different colors for the negative values.
5.2 Editing Vertical Axis Labels
To format the vertical axis, right-click one of its labels and select Format Axis… from the context menu (or simply double-click the axis labels). This will bring up the Format Axis pane on the right side of your spreadsheet.
In the pane, navigate to the tab Axis Options (rightmost), expand the Labels 
node and set the Label Position to Low :
5.3 Changing the fill color of negative values
If you want to draw attention to negative values in your Excel bar chart, changing the fill color of negative bars would make them stand out.
If your Excel bar chart contains only one data series, you can shade negative values in standard red. If your bar chart contains multiple data series, then you will need to shade negative values in each series with a different color. For example, you can keep the original colors for positive values and use lighter shades of the same colors for negative values.
To change the color of negative bars, do the following:
- Right-click any bar in the data series whose color you want to change (the orange bars in this example) and select Format Data Series… from the context menu.
- In the Format Data Series… pane , on the Fill & Line tab , select the Invert if negative check box .
- As soon as you check the Invert if negative box , you should see two fill color options, the first for positive values and the second for negative values.
If the second fill area is not displayed, click the small black arrow in the only color option you see and choose the color you want for positive values (you can select the same color as the one applied by default). Once this is done, the second color option for negative values will appear.
6 Sorting Data on Bar Charts
When you create a bar chart in Excel, by default, the data categories appear in reverse order on the chart. That is, if you sort the data from A to Z on the worksheet, your Excel bar chart will display them ZA. Why does Excel always place data categories backwards in bar charts? No one knows. But we know how to fix this problem.
The easiest way to reverse the order of data categories on a bar chart is to reverse sort on the sheet.
Let’s use some simple data to illustrate this. In a spreadsheet, we have a list of 9 cities sorted in descending order of sales, from highest to lowest. On the bar chart, however, the data appears in ascending order, from lowest to highest: 
To sort your Excel bar chart from top to bottom, simply arrange the source data in reverse order, i.e. from smallest to largest: 
If sorting the data on the sheet is not an option, the following section explains how to change the sort order on an Excel bar chart without sorting the data source.
Sort an Excel bar chart descending/ascending without sorting the source data
If the sort order of your spreadsheet is important and can’t be changed, let’s make the chart bars appear in exactly the same order. It’s easy and only requires selecting a few checkbox options.
- On your Excel bar chart, right-click one of the vertical axis labels and select Format Axis… from the context menu. Or, simply double-click the vertical axis labels to bring up the Format Axis pane .
- In the Format Axis pane , under Axis Options , select the following options:
- Under Horizontal Axis Crossings , check the At Most category
- Under Axis Position , check the categories in reverse order
Your Excel bar chart will be immediately sorted in the same way as the data source, in descending or ascending order. As soon as you change the sort order on the sheet, the bar chart will be automatically resorted.
7 Changing the Order of Data Series in a Bar Chart
If your Excel bar chart contains multiple data series, they are also plotted backward by default. For example, note the reverse order of regions on the worksheet and on the bar chart : 
To arrange the data series on the bar chart in the same order as they appear on the worksheet, you can select the At most category and Categories in reverse order options, as shown in the previous example. This will also change the plot order of the data categories, as shown in the following screenshot: 
If you want to arrange the data series on the bar chart in a different order than the data on the worksheet, you can do so using:
- Select Data Source Dialog Box
- Data Series Formulas
Change the order of data series using the dialog box
This method allows you to change the plotting order of each individual data series on a bar chart and maintain the original data arrangement on the worksheet.
- Select the chart to activate the Chart Tools tabs on the ribbon. Go to the Chart Design tab / Data group , and then click the Select Data button .
Or, click the Chart Filters button to the right of the chart, then click the Select Data… link at the bottom.
Data Source dialog box , select the data series whose plot order you want to change and move it up or down using the arrow
corresponding : 