Side by side comparison bar chart

To compare two sets of data, you can create various comparison charts, such as a butterfly chart, mirror chart, tornado chart, etc., or a double-sided chart. However, comparing the values in opposite directions is not always convenient. In order to display two datasets, you can use Excel to create a side-by-side bar chart, also known as a double bar chart.

How to create an axis with subcategories

Excel offers a lot of different tricks to create great informative charts and diagrams. A lot of the useful adjustments related to the axis. E.g., you can hide an axis, use primary and secondary axis, change the presentation of data on the axis, etc.

How to add labels to the Marimekko chart

This is the third, last part of the tip How to create a Marimekko or Mekko chart in Excel (the second part is How to add separators to the Marimekko chart). The area chart created in the previous part needs data labels:

How to create a histogram chart by category using frequencies in Excel

There are several ways to create a histogram chart in Excel. By the moment, Excel uses two different algorithms to calculate the data for a histogram chart:

Improve axes format in Excel

Very few Excel users pay attention to the chart axes, but there are some tricks with axes that will help you to improve your visualizations with little or no efforts.

Bubble chart

The most popular charts display data in one (as a pie chart, radar, or spider chart) or two dimensions (any type of line chart or scatter plot). If you need to display data in three dimensions, you can use 3D charts or bubble charts.

Progress Gantt chart with events

Gantt chart is a pervasive project management tool intended to reveal task management problems. Besides creating tasks on the Gantt chart, you can enrich it with additional information like project milestones, presentation dates, and similar events.

Creating automatically extended plot ranges

If you often need to adjust your data ranges so that your charts plot an updated data range, you may be interested in a trick that forces Excel to update the chart's data range whenever you add new data to your spreadsheet.

Creating a twin or double thermometer chart

The thermometer chart (also known as a thermometer goal chart or progress chart) displays the percentage of a completed task. See also how to create a simple and glossy thermometer chart. But sometimes, displaying two results in one chart will be more informative and impressive. Below is an example of creating a thermometer chart with two competitive columns:

Glossy Gantt chart with a vertical line

If you need to create a simple Gantt chart, see Creating a Gantt chart or Gantt chart with progress. To add events to your Gantt chart, see Progress Gantt chart with events. This tip will help you to extend those charts by a vertical line that shows the current date.