Visualizing Revenue: Column Charts for Data Comparison

In this section, we'll take a look at creating a column chart. A column chart is used to visually compare values across a few categories. In this situation, we have several products and their revenue.

We want to be able to visually display this information in a column chart. What is a bar chart? A bar chart is simply a column chart tilted on its side—so, very similar.

To create a column chart, we need to insert the chart into the spreadsheet. The reason I say that is this will remind you of where to go on the ribbon. You'll go to the Insert tab.

When you go to the Insert tab, you'll then head over to the Charts group, the appropriate place to go. Then, you'll see several icons to choose from. If you're not sure which icon represents a column chart, just hover your mouse over the icons until you see a little tooltip pop up—that will let you know whether you've selected the right icon.

Here I have the option to insert a column or bar chart. I'll click once. Actually, I won't click.

Here's a very important point: before you go to select your chart icon, you want to make sure that you've clicked somewhere in the data, or else you won't be able to chart that data. You don't necessarily have to select all the data, just a single cell.

Now, I'll go back. I'll click on the dropdown here, and then I'll choose 2D Column Chart. With one click, I've created the chart.

Now, I'll share another little tip with you. If I wanted to create a chart, there is a dedicated keyboard shortcut to instantly create a chart. That keyboard shortcut is ALT+F1.

Just using that quick keyboard shortcut, I created a column chart. If a column chart is not the type of chart that I want, then I'll notice that I have a Chart Design tab, and I can head right over to Change Chart Type, click that, and choose from any of the other types of charts that I might want to change that column chart into. But we want to create a clustered column chart, so that's what we're going to stick with.

I'll click OK. Now that we have the chart, we can begin to examine how we can make customizations to the chart. In the last video, we looked at line charts, and we talked about Quick Layout, Change Colors, and Chart Styles.

In this situation, I want to make the changes myself and not rely on layouts. The place that you'll go to access the options you need to modify the chart is the Chart Design tab, and then all the way over to the left, Add Chart Element. Here, you'll have lots of different elements to choose from to add to your chart.

So let's follow the exercise and take a look at how we can begin to modify this chart. First thing I'm going to do is add titles to both the horizontal axis—I'm going to call it "Products"—and the vertical axis, which is going to be "Annual Revenue." So I'll go to the Chart Design tab, then I'll head over to the Chart Layout group, and then I'll click the dropdown for Add Chart Element, and I want to choose Axis Titles.

I'll start with "Products." I'm going to choose Primary Horizontal. Here's a cool thing on the PC: as soon as you click, you can start typing.

I'm just going to type "Products." You’ll say, “Wait a minute, it’s not showing up in the chart.” I’ll say, don’t worry—just have a little faith.

After you press ENTER, it displays right there. I'm going to do the same thing with the vertical axis. I'll click the dropdown, go to Axis Titles, choose Primary Vertical Axis.

The text that I want in that axis title is going to be "Annual Revenue." So I'll click Primary Vertical Axis, and then I'll simply start typing "Annual." Again, the text is showing up in the formula bar and not in the chart yet, but as soon as I press ENTER, it'll display there.

At least I didn’t have to write vertically sideways to put the text there. Next, I want to add a chart title. You can simply go to the title that's already there, click in it, and then select the text that's there and type over it: "2017 Annual Revenue."

Then I'll click somewhere in the background of the chart, and I’ve made those customizations. You can see that the product names are at an angle. If I want to change this so that the product categories are displayed horizontally, I just have to make the chart a little wider.

There we go. Now I can see all the products—so that’s a little bit better. We'll make a couple more changes.

If I’m looking at our exercise, we want to apply outside-end data labels. These are numbers that will tell me the exact amount for each of the bars in the bar chart. I'll go to Add Chart Element.

I’ll head over to Data Labels, and currently I’ll see “None” is selected. If I choose Center, that’s not going to work too well because I really can’t see the numbers. Inside End, Inside Base, Outside End.

That’s the perfect option to be able to see the text for the values as well as the bars. If I choose any of the other options, I’d have to play around with color to come up with a better contrast. Next thing I would like to do is add a data table that includes legend keys.

Let me show you another option you can use to add elements to your chart. If you go over to the right, there’s this little section where you can choose icons that represent some of the options available in the ribbon. For instance, if I click the paintbrush, I will have the option to choose a certain type of chart style and also the option to choose color.

These mirror the same options I have up in the ribbon. But I can also click the plus sign, and I get all the chart elements that I can choose from up in the ribbon right here. Now I want to add a data table with legend keys.

I’ll click this little triangle here, and then I can choose the one with legend keys. And there we go—I’ve added it to the chart. Last thing I’d like to add is minor horizontal gridlines.

So I’m going to go to Gridlines, and then I’m going to click on this little triangle to look at my options. I want Minor Horizontal. So I’ll click that.

What this does is it adds extra lines between the major gridlines. This adds a greater level of detail to the bars in the chart. So I can see more precise gradations as it goes from 6,000 to 7,000 or 5,000 to 6,000.

So those are some of the chart elements you can add to a chart. You're customizing the chart yourself and not just relying on Microsoft’s chart layouts, colors, and chart styles. If you scroll down, we have some reference material you can review that relates to other elements you can add to your chart.

So in this section, we just looked at how you can create a column chart and how you can add different elements to the chart.