How to Change Order of Bar Chart in Excel

Creating a bar chart in Excel is simple, but getting it to display exactly how you want can feel surprisingly tricky. Often, the bars appear in the reverse order of your data table, forcing you to manually rearrange your spreadsheet or hunt through confusing menus. This tutorial will show you a few easy methods for changing the order of your bar chart in Excel, giving you full control over your data visualizations.

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Why Does Excel Order Bar Charts This Way?

Before diving into the fixes, it helps to understand why Excel behaves this way. A standard horizontal bar chart has a vertical axis (the Y-axis) for categories and a horizontal axis (the X-axis) for values.

Excel reads your source data table from the first row to the last row. When it builds the chart, it plots the first data row at the bottom of the vertical axis and the last data row at the top.

Let’s say you have this simple table of product sales:

When you create a bar chart from this data, Excel plots Product A at the bottom, Product B in the middle, and Product C at the top. This top-down data becomes a bottom-up chart, which is often the opposite of what we intuitively expect. Fortunately, fixing this is easy.

Method 1: The Quick Fix Using "Format Axis" Options

The fastest way to flip the order of your bars is to use a built-in formatting option. This method reverses the order of the categories on the axis without changing your source data.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

• First, right-click on the vertical axis (the one with your category labels, like "Product A," "Product B," etc.).
• From the context menu that appears, select Format Axis....
• The Format Axis pane will appear on the right side of your screen. Under the Axis Options tab, look for a checkbox labeled Categories in reverse order.
• Check this box. Your bar chart will immediately update, flipping the y-axis to match the top-to-bottom order of your data table.

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Adjusting the Horizontal Axis Position

You’ll notice one side effect: checking "Categories in reverse order" also moves the horizontal axis (the value axis) to the top of the chart. For most people, this looks strange.

To move it back to the bottom:

• In that same Format Axis pane, find the section for Horizontal axis crosses.
• Select the option At maximum category.

This tells Excel to place the horizontal X-axis at the bottom boundary of the chart, restoring its familiar layout. This quick-fix method is perfect when all you need is a simple reversal of the existing order.

Method 2: Sorting Your Source Data (Most Common)

While the first method is fast, the best and most flexible way to control your chart's order is by sorting the source data itself. This gives you complete power to arrange the bars based on their values, such as from highest to lowest or lowest to highest.

Let's use a new example: monthly website traffic.

If you want to display the bars in descending order (highest traffic month at the top, lowest at the bottom), you need to sort the data table accordingly.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

• Select the entire data range you want to sort, including the headers (e.g., A1:B5).
• Go to the Data tab in Excel's main ribbon.
• Click the large Sort icon. This will open the Sort dialog box.
• In the Sort dialog box:
• Make sure the "My data has headers" box is checked if your selection included the column titles.
• Click OK.

Your data table will instantly reorder itself, and your bar chart will update automatically. March will now be at the top of the table, followed by April, January, and February. Because of Excel's default bottom-up plotting, your chart will correctly display March at the top with the longest bar and February at the bottom with the shortest bar. This is the most intuitive way for viewers to consume the information.

To create an ascending chart (shortest bar on top), simply choose Smallest to Largest in the Sort order.

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Method 3: Creating a Custom Sort Order

Sometimes, sorting by numerical value or alphabetically isn't what you need. You might need to order a chart based on a specific business model, workflow, or geographical logic - like a sales funnel.

For example, you want your chart to show regional performance in a specific order: East, West, North, South, Central. No standard sort will achieve this. This is where Excel's Custom Lists feature is incredibly useful.

Step 1: Create a Custom List

• Go to File > Options > Advanced.
• Scroll down to the General section and click the Edit Custom Lists... button.
• In the Custom Lists window, select NEW LIST. Then, in the "List entries" box on the right, type your desired order, pressing Enter after each item. For our example, you would type:
• Click the Add button, and your new list will be saved in Excel. Click OK to close the windows.

Step 2: Apply Your Custom Sort

• Now, go back to your data and open the Sort dialog box (Data tab > Sort), just like in Method 2.
• In the "Column" dropdown, select the column containing your regions (e.g., "Region").
• In the "Order" dropdown, select Custom List....
• Choose your newly created list (East, West, North...) from the options and click OK.
• Click OK again on the main Sort dialog box.

Your data table and your bar chart will now be perfectly arranged according to your custom business logic. This technique is invaluable for reports that need to tell a specific story, such as visualizing a customer journey or a company's organizational priorities.

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Bonus Tip: Using a Helper Column for Complex Orders

Creating a custom list is great, but what if your manual order is a one-time thing or too complex to save? A "helper column" is a simple and effective workaround.

A classic example is sorting months chronologically. If you sort a text column with month names alphabetically, you'll get April, August, December... which isn't very useful. To fix this, you create a new column to assign a numerical order.

Here’s how it works:

1. Insert a new column next to your source data. You can call it "Sort Order" or something similar.
2. In this column, manually assign a number to each row that corresponds to your desired chart order. For chronological months, January would be 1, February 2, March 3, and so on.

1. Use the Sort dialog box (Data > Sort), but this time, tell Excel to sort everything by your new "Sort Order" column, from Smallest to Largest.

Because Excel sorts your entire table based on this column, your months and their corresponding session data will now be in perfect chronological order in the table, which in turn will arrange your bar chart top-to-bottom chronologically.

Once your data is sorted, you can simply hide or delete the "Sort Order" column. The chart's order will remain intact.

This technique can be adapted for any specific, non-standard ordering need and avoids adding a permanent custom list to your Excel settings.

Final Thoughts

Arranging your Excel bar charts is simple once you understand the logic. You can use the quick "Categories in reverse order" fix for a fast flip, but for true control, sorting your source data is the best method. By sorting your table numerically, alphabetically, or with a custom list, you gain the power to present your data in the clearest and most impactful way.

Of course, building, sorting, and formatting visualizations in spreadsheets is often just the beginning of a long reporting process. Pulling fresh data involves logging into multiple platforms, exporting CSVs, and repeating the process week after week. If you're tired of that manual work, Graphed is designed to automate it. We let you connect platforms like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Salesforce directly and create real-time, self-updating dashboards by simply describing what you want to see - no more manual sorting or chart formatting needed.