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Bar Chart Maker

Rank things and compare sizes, accurately. Upload a spreadsheet, pick your categories and values, and publish an interactive bar chart you can embed anywhere — free.

Create a Bar Chart — freeSee the gallery

A live Bar Chart, built in PlotSet

Not a screenshot — a real interactive chart, embedded exactly as yours would be.

Example: The ten largest economies

What is a Bar Chart?

A bar chart represents each category as a bar whose length is proportional to its value, with all bars starting from a common baseline. That shared baseline is the whole point: length from a fixed zero is the most accurately read visual encoding there is, which is why a bar chart is the safe default for almost any category-versus-value comparison. When you are unsure which chart to use, this is usually the right answer.

When to use a Bar Chart

  • You are comparing values across categories

    Revenue by country, headcount by department, votes by party. One bar per category, one number per bar, no ambiguity.

  • You want a ranking

    Sorted bars turn a table into an ordered picture. The reader sees first, last and the gaps between them without reading a single number.

  • The differences are small and still matter

    Because bars share a baseline, a few percent difference is visible and trustworthy. Pies and donuts cannot do this.

  • Your category names are long

    Horizontal bars give long labels a full line each, with no rotating or truncating. This alone makes bars better than columns for most real-world category names.

When not to use a Bar Chart

  • You are showing a continuous trend over time

    Many time periods read better as a line, which makes the shape of the change visible. Bars over time work only for a handful of periods.

  • You need to show the parts of each total

    One bar carries one number. If each category breaks into segments, use a stacked bar chart, or grouped bars if the segments need precise comparison.

  • You have hundreds of categories

    Four hundred bars is a texture, not a chart. Filter to a meaningful top group, or move to a distribution chart such as a histogram.

  • You cannot start the axis at zero

    Bar length is the encoding. If your data genuinely needs a non-zero baseline, use a dot plot or a line chart, where position rather than length carries the value.

How to make a Bar Chart

From a spreadsheet to a published chart, step by step.

01

Start from the bar chart template

Open the PlotSet bar chart template. Sample data comes bound so you can see the expected spreadsheet layout before uploading your own.

02

Prepare a category column and a value column

One row per thing being compared: the name in the first column, the number in the second. That is the whole requirement.

03

Upload or connect your data

Import a CSV or Excel file, paste from a spreadsheet, or connect a Google Sheet so the chart can be refreshed later.

04

Sort, label and keep one colour

Sort by value unless the categories have their own order, add value labels so nobody has to measure against the axis, and use a single colour: with one series, colour carries no information and rainbow bars only add noise.

05

Publish, embed or export

Publish for a live interactive embed with hover tooltips, or export a PNG, SVG or PDF for a report or deck.

Start from the Bar Chart template with sample data already loaded, then swap in your own.

Open the template

The parts of a Bar Chart

Category axis
The axis listing what you are comparing. Horizontal bars put it on the left, which is where long labels belong.
Value axis
The numeric scale the bar lengths are measured against. It must start at zero, because length from zero is what encodes the value.
Bar
One category. Its length is the value; its width is meaningless and should be identical for every bar.
Gap
The space between bars. Roughly half a bar width reads well: too little and the chart looks like a histogram, too much and the comparison gets harder.
Value label
The number printed at the end of each bar. Adding it removes the need to read against gridlines and usually lets you drop the gridlines entirely.
Sort order
Ranked by value, or by the categories' own natural order. Unsorted bars make the reader do work the chart should have done.

Common Bar Chart mistakes

Truncating the value axis

Starting the axis above zero breaks the length encoding and exaggerates every difference on the chart. This is the single most common way a bar chart misleads.

Giving every bar a different colour

With one series, colour encodes nothing. Use one colour, and reserve a second only to highlight the bar you are actually talking about.

Leaving the bars unsorted

Alphabetical or spreadsheet order hides the ranking that the chart exists to show. Sort by value unless there is a real reason not to.

Rotating long category labels

Diagonal text is hard to read. Switch to horizontal bars and the labels sit flat on one line each.

Bar Chart: common questions

Comparing a single value across categories. Each bar's length encodes its value from a shared zero baseline, which makes it the most accurately read of the common charts.

Make your Bar Chart now

Free to start with 300+ templates. No credit card required.

Create a Bar Chart — freeAll chart types