If we selected A1:B6 then the label in cell B2 would be used as a chart title. The chart will have no problem interpreting this layout. The data is arranged with the labels in the first column and the values in the second column. The data shown below was used to create the column chart above. It is easy to interpret the data and see that phones and televisions have the most sales, and the games products with the least.īonus: Check out the free lesson on how to make a column chart in Excel This chart is comparing the current year's sales of different products. They are extremely versatile and can be used to compare data, to see progress toward a goal, percentage contribution, the distribution of data and actuals against target scenarios.īelow is a classic column chart.Column charts provide advanced options that are not available with some other chart types such as trendlines and adding a secondary axis.There are a huge number of formatting options available with column charts.This makes them a sensible option as you want others to understand what you are presenting. Users are more familiar with column charts than some of the other chart types.You can create a column chart in just a few clicks. Here are five reasons why column charts are so great: