Creating In-Cell Bar Charts

Microsoft Excel 2007 Tips #6 -- Creating In-Cell Bar Charts with Data Bars

A Data Bar in Microsoft Excel is defined as a semitransparent swath of colour which start from the lief side of the cell. If the number in the cell is small, then the range of the coloured bar would be small and vice versa. The use of this in-cell bar chart is one alternative in presenting a table filled with numeric data. Watch my video below to get a better idea of what I have been saying.

Creating data bars is not that difficult, only requiring a few clicks.

1. Drag the mouse to select a range of numeric data. Take note that this data should be numbers of the same scale, ie. if you have a row of total, then don not include this row.
2. Go to Home Ribbon, then from the Style group, select the Conditional Formatting icon.
3. Choose Data Bars frin the drop down.

If you do not like the default set by the Excel, you can customise by following these steps:

1. From the same Conditional Formatting, shoose Manage Rules (the last option).
2. From the Show Formatting Rules drop-down, choose This Worksheet.
3. Click the Data Bar rule you want to customise.
4. Click the Edit button, and you can start customising it as you wish.

Hope that helps.

More articles on ToyangQren's another blog.