How to Make a Bar Chart in Google Sheets

Making a bar chart in Google Sheets is one of the fastest and most effective ways to compare values across different categories. They turn rows of abstract numbers into a simple visual story that anyone can understand at a glance. We'll walk through the entire process, starting with formatting your data, creating the chart, and customizing it to make your insights crystal clear.

When to Use a Bar Chart

Before jumping into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." Bar charts are perfect for comparing distinct items. Think of times you need to answer questions like:

• Which marketing channel brought in the most new leads last month?

• What are the top-selling products by revenue?

• How did our social media follower counts change across different platforms?

• Which blog posts received the most pageviews?

Each of these questions involves comparing numerical values (leads, revenue, followers) across specific categories (channels, products, platforms). This is where bar charts shine. In Google Sheets, you’ll see options for both a "Bar chart" (which has horizontal bars) and a "Column chart" (which has vertical bars). Functionally, they do the same job, and the process to create them is identical.

Step 1: Get Your Data Ready

A great chart starts with well-organized data. For a basic bar chart, all you need are two columns. One column should contain your categories, and the other should have the corresponding numbers you want to compare.

Your data should be structured simply, like this:

• Column 1 (Categories): These are the things you are comparing. They are your labels, like 'Social Media', 'Organic Search', 'Product A', or 'Quarter 1'. This is your qualitative data.

• Column 2 (Values): These are the numbers associated with each category. They are your metrics, like '5,000 visitors', '2,500 sales', or '$120,000 revenue'. This is your quantitative data.

For example, let’s imagine we want to visualize website traffic from different sources for the month of July. Your data in Google Sheets would look something like this:

Your header labels ("Source" and "Sessions" in this case) are important, as Google Sheets will use them to automatically label your chart axes.

Step 2: How to Make a Basic Bar Chart in Google Sheets

With your data cleanly organized, creating the chart takes just a few clicks. Follow these steps, and you’ll have a visual in less than a minute.

1. Select Your Data

Click on the top-left cell of your data set (including the header, like "Source") and drag your mouse to the bottom-right cell to highlight the entire range. In our example, you would select cells A1 through B6.

2. Insert the Chart

With your data selected, navigate to the top menu bar, click Insert, and then select Chart from the dropdown menu.

3. Choose Your Chart Type

Google Sheets will automatically generate a chart for you based on what it thinks best fits your data. Often, it will correctly choose a column chart (vertical bars). A chart and a Chart editor pane will appear on your screen.

To change it, go to the Setup tab in the Chart editor. Click the dropdown menu under ‘Chart type’. You can scroll down to find the Bar chart option for horizontal bars or confirm Column chart is selected for vertical ones.

Just like that, you’ve created a basic bar chart! Now comes the fun part: making it clear and professionally designed.

Step 3: Customize Your Bar Chart in the Chart Editor

"Good enough" works, but "great" gets your point across more effectively. The Chart editor pane is where all the magic happens. If you accidentally closed it, just double-click on your chart to bring it back. The editor has two main tabs: Setup and Customize.

Using the Setup Tab

This tab controls the fundamental data and structure of your chart.

• Data range: This confirms the data being used. You can adjust it here if you accidentally selected the wrong cells.

• X-axis and Y-axis: Google Sheets usually gets this right, but you can define which column serves as the labels (axis) and which serves as the values (series).

• Stacking: For bar charts with multiple data sets (which we'll cover below), you can choose to stack them. For now, leave this as 'None'.

Using the Customize Tab

This tab is where you control the look and feel. Let's break down the most useful options.

• Chart style: Here you can change fundamentals like the background color of the chart, the font for all text, and add a border around it. A subtle light gray background (#f7f7f7) can often make charts pop slightly from the stark white sheet.

• Chart & axis titles: A chart without a title is like a book without a cover. Click this section to give your chart a clear, descriptive name (e.g., "Website Traffic by Source - July"). You can also add titles to your horizontal axis (X-axis) and vertical axis (Y-axis) for extra clarity (e.g., "Traffic Source" and "Number of Sessions").

• Series: This refers to your data values - the bars themselves. You can change the color of the bars, which is useful for aligning with company branding or highlighting a specific category with a contrasting color. You can also add data labels to show the exact value on top of or inside each bar, a great practice for making numbers easy to read.

• Legend: The legend explains what different colors mean. For a simple bar chart with one data series, it's not very useful. You can use this section to change its position or remove it entirely by selecting 'None'.

• Horizontal/Vertical axis: These options allow you to fine-tune the axis labels. You can change their font, size, and color. For value axes, you can also format the numbers, for instance, adding a dollar sign for currency.

• Gridlines and ticks: Too many lines can make a chart look cluttered. Use this section to adjust or remove major and minor gridlines to create a cleaner, more minimalist look. Often, removing the vertical gridlines can make the horizontal bars much easier to follow.

Going Beyond the Basic Bar Chart

Once you've mastered the single series bar chart, you can level up by creating more complex comparisons within Google Sheets.

Grouped (or Clustered) Bar Chart

A grouped bar chart allows you to compare values for two or more series within the same categories. For example, what if you wanted to compare traffic from each source in July vs. August? You would add a third column to your data:

After selecting this data and inserting a chart, Google Sheets will automatically create a grouped bar chart with two bars per category—one for July and one for August. This makes it incredibly easy to see both month-over-month changes for each source and the overall top performers in each month.

Stacked Bar Chart

A stacked bar chart shows how different sub-components contribute to a total. Each bar represents a total value, with segments inside showing its composition. For instance, you could show total sales per quarter, with each bar segmented by product line. In the Chart editor's Setup tab, simply select 'Standard' from the Stacking dropdown menu to achieve this effect.

Tips for Effective Bar Charts

Creating the chart is only half the battle. Making it effective is what matters most. Keep these best practices in mind:

• Start your value axis at zero. Not doing so is a common way to visually exaggerate differences and mislead your audience. Always let the axis start at 0 for an honest representation of the data.

• Use color with purpose. Color should add clarity, not confusion. Stick to a simple palette. Use a single color for single-series charts, or use distinct but complementary colors to differentiate series in a grouped chart. A neutral gray with one highlighted color to an insight is a great pro-tip.

• Sort your data. Arranging your bars in ascending or descending order makes it far easier for the viewer to identify top and bottom performers. An unsorted bar chart forces the user to do extra work.

• Keep it simple. Avoid 3D effects, shadows, or busy backgrounds. The cleanest charts are often the most impactful. The focus should be on the data, not the decoration.

• Choose orientation wisely. If you have long category labels (e.g., long product names or full sentences from survey responses), a horizontal bar chart is better. It gives the labels room to breathe without getting cut off or slanted. A vertical column chart is often best for displaying data over time, as it follows a natural left-to-right progression.

Final Thoughts

Building a bar chart in Google Sheets is a simple and powerful way to present data. Once you have clean, well-structured data, you can create and refine a visual report in just a few minutes that makes your comparisons immediately obvious. It’s a core skill for anyone working with numbers.

Of course, the more data sources you have, the more time you spend jumping between platforms, exporting CSVs, and building these reports by hand. We got tired of that repetitive cycle, and it’s why we built Graphed. We wanted to connect all our marketing and sales platforms in one place and then simply ask plain questions - like "show me revenue by campaign as a bar chart" - to get a live, automated dashboard. It helps us spend less time in spreadsheets and more time acting on the insights.