Comments on: How to Adjust Your Bar Chart’s Spacing in Microsoft Excel

By: Ann K. Emery

Ann K. Emery — Wed, 22 Apr 2020 15:17:04 +0000

In reply to Suhaib. Hi Suhaib, You'll need to re-size the outer border of your chart. You can make the chart taller, shorter, wider, or narrower to adjust the bar dimensions.

By: Suhaib

Suhaib — Thu, 16 Apr 2020 10:48:25 +0000

Thank you, this is helpful. I wanted to ask if there is also a way to reduce the gap without altering the widths of the bars? And if this can be done for some categories only? For example, I need to create a chart that has 2 bars for each year from 2016 to 2019. I want the bars in each year to be closer together but don’t want to reduce the gap between the year categories on the horizontal axis.

By: Ann K. Emery | Reenvisioning a University’s Annual Report with Saturation, Annotations, and Icons

Tue, 21 Aug 2018 15:08:53 +0000

[…] the columns closer together (here’s a tutorial on shrinking the gap width) so that viewers could see the smoothed-out shape of the graph rather than the individual […]

By: Ann K. Emery

Ann K. Emery — Mon, 19 Mar 2018 11:53:13 +0000

In reply to Carlos.

Hi Carlos,
In a line chart or a stacked line chart (a.k.a. stacked area chart), you can move the categories closer together by narrowing the graph. By default, Excel graphs are 3 inches tall and 5 inches wide. To nudge the categories closer together, you would adjust your graph so that it’s, let’s say, 3 inches tall and 4 inches wide. To re-size the graph, simply click on the graph to activate it, and then go to Chart Tools –> Format –> Size. Or, click on the border of the graph and drag to border to the right or left.
Another option is to add more categories altogether. For example, let’s say you’re graphing 12 months of data (so 12 categories going across your line or stacked line chart). If you added another 12 months of data (24 categories total), then each category would now be half its original size, hence shrinking the space between them.
Thanks,
Ann

By: Carlos

Carlos — Fri, 09 Mar 2018 01:46:56 +0000

Thanks, for Line Chart or Stacked Line chart, how can reduce this space (gap)

By: Ann K. Emery | How to Adjust Your Column Chart’s Spacing in Excel

Ann K. Emery | How to Adjust Your Column Chart’s Spacing in Excel — Wed, 21 Feb 2018 18:56:27 +0000

[…] Here’s the mostly edited version: reduced clutter; custom color; labels directly beside the data; reduced gap width. […]