Excel chart data labels are quite boring. While there is not much you can do with these, a bit of excel trickery can add some glamor to it. In this post, I will show you how to show trends in chart labels in a bar chart. Something as shown below:
Suppose I have the data as shown below:
If I plot 2013 data only, it won’t tell us how much the sales of a product have increased/decreased over the last year. However, I can do this by changing the chart data label to show the YoY change. To do this, we first need to modify our data set a bit.
When you have the data set in place, create a bar chart using 2013 values. You will get a chart as shown below:
Now to show the YoY change instead of 2013 values in chart labels, follow the steps below: That’s it!! You would have your chart ready.
Try it yourself.. Download the file
Color Negative Chart Data Labels in Red with a downward arrow. Creating Pareto Chart in Excel (Simple + Interactive). How to Spot Data Point in Excel Scatter Chart. How to Type Degree Symbol in Excel. How to Apply Superscript and Subscript Format in Excel. How to Insert Bullets in Excel. Adding Trendlines in Excel Charts.
There’s an add-in that you can use for scatterplots (X-Y plots) but I’m not aware of any add-ins for column charts. https://www.dropbox.com/s/qm9qxp2r5ykj4rr/Excel%20Chart%20with%20Trend%20in%20Data%20Labels%20for%202010.xlsx
