How to create a Graph bar in Google Sheets

How to create a Graph bar in Google Sheets.

Bar charts can be extremely useful when it comes to visualizing data. They can display one dataset or compare multiple datasets.

In this article, we’ll take a look at how to create different types of bar charts in Google Sheets.

How to Create a Bar Graph in Google Sheets

Let’s start with a simple two-column table. In the first column of your spreadsheet, add a label for each row in your series. Optionally, you can add a category to the top cell and that category will appear as a title on the horizontal Y-axis of your graph. Labels under that category name appear along the horizontal axis of the chart.

Add at least one data column. Enter a label in the first cell of the second column and add data to the cells below it.

Then follow these steps to insert a bar chart to represent the data.

Select all cells that contain data.
From the menu, choose Insert> Chart. or click the Insert Chart icon.

Whichever method you choose, Google will insert a bar chart into your sheet. (Google calls this bar chart. It’s the same thing.)

Create a multi-data bar chart in Google Sheets

To create a histogram that includes multiple datasets, simply add more columns of data.

Follow the same steps as above to insert a bar chart view of your data.

Select all cells that contain data.
From the menu, choose Insert> Chart, or click the Insert Chart icon.

Here’s a histogram that uses multiple columns of data from the table above.

In this case, Google uses the categories in the first row of data as the title of the chart.

Create a stacked bar chart in Google Sheets

When you use multiple datasets, you can show part-to-whole relationships in your data by choosing what is called a stacked histogram. In our example above, the chart shows how many books each person read in a given month. If we switch the bar chart to a stacked bar chart, we see how many books each person has read this month compared to the total number of books everyone has read this month.

There are several different options for stacked bar charts. First, we’ll look at a standard stacked histogram.

After inserting a bar chart, double-click it, and the Chart Editor pane appears on the right.

Note. You can always change the title of the chart in the chart editor or by double-clicking the title of the chart.

In the “Stacking” section, select “Standard”.

You will now see the values â€‹â€‹for each category grouped into separate bands.

Alternatively, instead of Standard, you can select 100% to create a stacked bar chart that displays the ratio of individual data to the whole. Use this when the total is not important.

In our example, we may not care how many books are read per month, but only how many books each person reads relative to others.

Notice that in the 100% stacked histogram above, the labels along the x-axis are now percentages.

How to swap columns and rows in a diagram

Using our example, let’s say you want to make it easier to visualize how each person’s reading habits have changed from month to month. Google Sheets makes it easy to turn columns into rows and vice versa.

Double-click the chart or graph.
Select Customize on the right.
Select the Toggle Rows / Columns check box.

Our regular histogram now looks like this:

If we swap the rows and columns in our stacked bar chart, it looks like this:

As you can see, each of these options is perfect for telling a specific story about our data. Think about your story you want to tell, and determine which kind of histogram most clearly reflects your point of view.

Customizing histograms in Google Sheets

You may have noticed the Customize tab in the Chart Editor.

Select this tab to change the look of your chart. Next, we’ll go over each section of the Customize tab.

The chart style allows you to select the background color, border color, and font for the chart. If you don’t like the changes you made, you can always click the Reset Layout button to start over.

Selecting the Expand check box will reduce the white space in the diagram. Give it a try and see if you like what you see.

Selecting a 3D block will make your rods 3D, for example:

In compare mode, comparable data will be highlighted when you hover the mouse over the various chart elements. In the chart below, notice how the November data is highlighted (the topmost section of each stacked column).

The Chart and Axis Titles section is another place where you can change the title of the chart, as well as its font, font size, format (italic, bold, etc.), and text color.

In the “Series” section, you can change the appearance of series labels.

In our case, these are months and the corresponding parts of the histogram. For example, you can change the color of the November data from yellow to gray.

You can also format a specific data point, such as data representing the number of books Lisa read in October. Click the Add button next to the Format Data Point field and from there you can change the color of that single data point.

In the Legend section, you can change the legend font, font size, format, and text color.

The sections “Horizontal Axis” and “Vertical Axis” offer similar options for formatting labels on each of the chart axes.

Finally, gridlines and tick marks are a relatively new feature (as of June 2020) that allows you to highlight parts of your axes by inserting tick marks, formatting them, and spacing them.

Google Sheets Makes Bar Graphs Easy

Now you know almost everything there is to know about creating a bar chart in Google Sheets. If you would like to learn more about ways to use Google Sheets, read about 5 Google Sheets script functions you need to know.

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