How to Create a Bar Chart for Comparing Data in Excel?

Excel is powerful data visualization and data management tool which can be used to store, analyze, and create reports on large data. It can be used to visualize data using a graph plot. In excel we can plot different kinds of graphs like line graphs, bar graphs, etc. to visualize or analyze the trend. Let's learn how to plot a bar chart for comparing data in excel.

Bar Chart for Comparing Data in Excel

Bar graph value is represented using the bars. It is used to compare items side-by-side. Column chart and bar chart is almost same, the only difference is in column chart bar is represented vertically while it is represented horizontally in bar graph. We can easily plot a line chart in excel, following the below steps, For the purpose of demonstration we will compare the sales of three different products over the given years:

 Step 1: Select the cell containing product data.

Step 2: Select 'Insert' Tab from the top ribbon and select the bar chart.

Bar chart

we can see that each product is shown with different colors. From the graph we can easily visualize and compare the sales for different years. For example, highest sales is of product C (grey) in year 2022.

Steps to make changes in graph

Step 1: Click on chart title (Sales in above graph)

Step 2: Chart format menu will open, make desired changes.

For example, change the chart title.

Output

You can see that the chart title is changed now.

Bar chart from pivot table

Suppose we have following table given below, and we want to compare the total expenditure by each individual buyer:

Steps to create pivot table

Step 1: Select the data and then select pivot table from insert tab.

Step 2: Select the 'expenditure by buyer' option and then select existing sheet option if you want your pivot table to be present in the same sheet.

Step 3: Give the cell value where you want to place the pivot table and then select Insert.

Step 4: Pivot table will get created.

Using this pivot now, we can create line chart. To create line chart follow the steps:

Step 1: Select the pivot table

Step 2: Click on Insert tab and select bar chart option.

Output

From this chart we can compare the total expenditure by each individual. For example, Rohit jha the maximum expenditure.