How to Make a Bar Graph in Excel
Creating a bar graph in Excel is one of the quickest ways to see the story hidden in your spreadsheet numbers. Instead of scanning rows of data, a simple chart can instantly show you which marketing campaign is performing best or which product is leading in sales. This guide will walk you through exactly how to make a bar graph in Excel, from preparing your data to customizing your chart to look clean and professional.
When to Use a Bar Graph
Bar graphs are perfect for comparing different items in a specific category. They use rectangular bars - either vertical or horizontal - to represent distinct values. The longer the bar, the larger the value it represents. This makes them incredibly intuitive for viewers.
Use a bar graph when you want to visualize data like:
Website traffic by source (e.g., Organic Search, Social Media, Direct)
Sales figures for different products
Monthly revenue for a specific quarter
Number of leads generated by different marketing campaigns
A Quick Note on Terminology: In Microsoft Excel, a "column chart" refers to a chart with vertical bars, while a "bar chart" refers to one with horizontal bars. For most people, they serve the same purpose, so we'll treat them as the same concept here. We’ll focus on the more common vertical column chart, but the principles apply to horizontal bar charts, too.
Preparing Your Data for a Bar Graph
Before you create any chart, you need to organize your data correctly. A well-structured table is the foundation of a good graph. For a basic bar graph, your data should be set up in two columns.
Column 1 (The X-Axis): This column should contain your categories. These are the distinct items you want to compare, such as product names, months, or traffic sources.
Column 2 (The Y-Axis): This column should contain the numerical values that correspond to each category, like sales numbers, session counts, or conversion rates.
Here’s an example of a simple, properly formatted dataset showing quarterly sales for different products:
Product | Q1 Sales
Widget A | $45,000 Widget B | $62,000 Widget C | $23,000 Widget D | $78,000
Your headers should be clear and concise, as Excel will often use them to automatically create chart and axis titles.
How to Make a Bar Graph in Excel (Step-by-Step)
Once your data is ready, creating the actual graph only takes a few clicks. Let's use the quarterly sales data from above.
Step 1: Select Your Data
Click and drag your mouse to highlight the entire data set you want to visualize, including the column headers. In our example, you would select the cells from "Product" down to "$78,000".
Pro Tip: You can also just click any single cell within your data range, and Excel’s AI is usually smart enough to automatically detect the entire table. However, highlighting it yourself guarantees you get the exact data you want.
Step 2: Go to the 'Insert' Tab
At the top of the Excel window, click on the Insert tab in the ribbon menu. Here you'll find all the charting options.
Step 3: Choose Your Bar Graph Type
In the 'Charts' section of the Insert tab, look for the 'Insert Column or Bar Chart' icon. It looks like a small bar graph.
Clicking this icon will open a dropdown menu with several chart options:
2-D Column: The standard, most commonly used type. It includes Clustered, Stacked, and 100% Stacked options.
3-D Column: A visually stylized version of the 2-D chart. Be careful with these, as 3-D effects can sometimes make it harder to compare values and distort perceptions.
2-D Bar: The same as the 2-D Column chart, but with horizontal bars.
3-D Bar: The horizontal version of the 3-D Column chart.
For now, select the first option: Clustered Column. It's the most straightforward and effective choice for simple comparisons.
Step 4: Your Graph is Created!
As soon as you select the chart type, Excel will instantly generate a bar graph and place it on your worksheet. It will automatically use your headers for the chart and axis titles, your first column for the categories on the x-axis, and your second column for the values on the y-axis.
Exploring Different Types of Bar Graphs
The standard clustered bar graph is great, but Excel offers a few other variations for when your data is more complex. You'll find these in the same 'Insert Column or Bar Chart' menu.
Clustered Bar Graph
This is the default type we just created. It's perfect for comparing the primary values of different categories. But it really shines when you have multiple data series. For example, if you wanted to compare Q1 Sales vs. Q2 Sales for each product.
To do this, simply add another column to your data:
Product | Q1 Sales | Q2 Sales
Widget A | $45,000 | $52,000 Widget B | $62,000 | $65,000 Widget C | $23,000 | $31,000 Widget D | $78,000 | $74,000
When you create a clustered column chart with this data, Excel will place bars for Q1 and Q2 side-by-side for each product, making direct comparison effortless.
Stacked Bar Graph
A stacked bar graph is used to show how different parts contribute to a whole for each category. Instead of placing the bars side-by-side, it stacks them on top of one another.
This is useful if you want to see the total sales for each product, while also understanding which region contributed the most. You'd set up your data like this:
Product | N. America | Europe | Asia
Widget A | $20,000 | $15,000 | $10,000 Widget B | $35,000 | $20,000 | $7,000 Widget C | $10,000 | $8,000 | $5,000
A stacked bar graph would create a single bar for each widget, broken into colored segments representing each region. The total height of the bar would represent the total sales for that product.
100% Stacked Bar Graph
This type of chart is similar to a stacked graph, but it shows the relative percentage of each component within a category. Each bar is the same height (representing 100%), but the segments inside are sized based on their percentage contribution.
This is perfect for answering questions like, "Which region makes up the biggest percentage of sales for Widget A versus Widget B?" It focuses on proportion rather than absolute totals.
Customizing Your Excel Bar Graph
Excel's default chart settings are functional, but a few quick customizations can make your graph much easier to read and more professional-looking.
When you click on your chart, two new contextual tabs will appear in the ribbon: Chart Design and Format.
1. Changing Chart Styles, Colors and Layouts
The Chart Design tab is your best friend for quick aesthetic changes:
Chart Styles: This gallery offers pre-made design templates with different background colors, bar styles, and text effects. Hover over them to see a live preview.
Change Colors: Choose from a variety of color palettes here. It’s always a good idea to pick one that is accessible and clear, or better yet, one that aligns with your company's brand colors.
Quick Layout: This feature lets you quickly change the arrangement of key chart elements, such as the position of the legend, the inclusion of data labels, and the presence of axis titles. It’s a fast way to get a professional layout.
2. Adding and Modifying Chart Elements
For more detailed control in the Chart Design view, you have the Add Chart Element tab in the upper-left, which lets you manually add, remove, or modify parts of your graph:
Chart Title: Your chart should always have a clear, descriptive title. Double-click the default title to edit it. Make it specific - instead of "Sales," use "Q1 Sales Performance by Product".
Axis Titles: It’s important to label your x-axis and y-axis so viewers know what they are looking at (e.g., "Product" and "Gross Sales in USD").
Data Labels: You might want to add data labels to the top of your bar graph, which will clearly list the numeric values you're referencing. You’ll be able to quickly see that you had $5,000 in January and $6,000 in February.
Gridlines: Sometimes less is more. Unchecking Primary Major Horizontal and Vertical gridlines can remove visual clutter and make your data stand out more.
Legend: The legend explains to a viewer what data series they are looking at - like the blue visualizer bars are Q1 Sales and the orange visualizer bars represent Q2 sales.
3. Formatting a Specific Section of the Graph
If you need more fine-grained control, you can right-click on any part of the chart - like the bars, an axis, or the title - and select Format... from the menu. This opens a sidebar with a range of detailed options.
For example, if you right-click on one of the data bars and select Format Data Series..., you can:
Adjust the 'Gap Width': Decrease this value to make your bars thicker and more prominent. Setting it to around 50-100% usually looks great.
Change the 'Fill' colors: Individually change the color of any bar (useful for highlighting a single important category) or the fill pattern completely.
Don't be afraid to experiment with these settings. A few small tweaks can transform a basic chart into a clear and compelling data visualization.
Pro Tips for Highly Effective Bar Graphs
Creating a chart is one thing, creating a chart that communicates clearly is another. Here are a few tips to level up your bar graphs.
Sort Your Data: Before you even create the chart, sort your data in descending or ascending order. Displaying the bars from tallest to shortest (or another pattern) helps the viewer quickly decipher data patterns.
Keep it Simple by Removing Chart Clutter: If your bars have data labels, an axis with the numeric amounts, chart borders, a legend, etc., they could create more visual noise than necessary. Consider removing or simplifying items to help tell a better story.
Communicate With Color: Using brand colors is a great way to make charts feel more cohesive. You can also use one standout color - like a bright orange - to highlight the bar you are drawing special attention to in a meeting, while the other bars are greyed out.
Final Thoughts
Making a bar graph in Excel is a foundational data visualization skill. By structuring your data properly and using the customization options available in the 'Insert' tab, you can transform your raw data numbers into engaging visuals in minutes.
While mastering Excel charts is a valuable skill, the process still relies on having cleaned, consolidated data and the time needed to build your weekly reporting dashboards. Often, the real bottleneck isn't creating the graph, but the effort it takes to manually pull and format your data together from several different reports and platforms needed to even begin. For this reason, we built Graphed to help businesses eliminate time-consuming, manual work by seamlessly connecting all of their data from your most important sales and marketing sources together for you and generating shared dashboards and graphs through natural language text right in our app. Graphed allows you to spend less energy wrangling data and focus on what to do with your valuable insights.