How to create a Bullet graph using excel charts and within an excel cell

February 15, 2013 by Alesandra Blakeston | 1 Comment Bullet graphs were invented by Stephen Few to improve upon standard bar charts and gauges. Instead of just showing the one value, you can compare that value to target values, previous values and objectives.

For example:

The current value is shown by the black bar in the centre (1100). The range is shown in colour: Very poor = dark grey, Poor = light grey, OK = dark blue Previous years value (comparative value) is shown as the white line (desired outcome should also be above this)

You can see how this is more desirable than say just a gauge chart, which doesnt have any comparison to any other

data (for example previous year): There are three main methods for recreating bullet charts (either single or multiple). Please note that this is not all my own work. A lot of this is from extensive reading on the chandoo site: http://chandoo.org/

1. Use a standard column chart (with additional line

chart)

2. Use a bar chart: 3. Create the bullet graph within a cell using a formula

There are definite advantages and disadvantages to the three methods, so Ill go through each.

Use a standard column chart

Advantages:

No calculations needed Can show percentages or real values if single line chart

Disadvantages:

Can have comparisons to more than one year Multiple line charts can only show percentage completion or normalised data

Method (single line) 1. Open an excel data sheet (see example bullet_graphs) 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Paste in the data shown below Select all of the cells except for the YTD column Insert a 2D clustered column chart Right click on the chart and choose the select data option Click on the switch row and column button

7. Rearrange the series until they are in the order shown below

8. Press the OK button to close 9. Select the first series (purple column above) and press Ctrl+1 10. Adjust the series options so that they are overlapped with no gap and press the close button 11. Delete the legend and the bottom horizontal axis. 12. Double-click on the vertical axis. 13. Adjust the minimum and maximum to show 0 and 1600 and press close 14. Right-click on the green column (2012 series) 15. Select change series chart type 16. Choose a line with markers type of graph 17. Adjust the fill colour and marker type to show a white line as a marker. Choose to have no line.

18. Reduce the width of the overall graph 19. Highlight the YTD column of data (2 cells) 20. Click on the graph and press Ctrl+V to add this series into the chart 21. Excel will automatically plot this as another line chart. 22. Right click the new point and choose change series chart type again 23. Choose the 2D column type again. All of the formatting we did in point 10 will disappear. 24. With the new series selected, click on Ctrl+1. 25. Choose to plot this series on the secondary axis and give it a gap width of 130% and press the close button 26. Left click on the new vertical axis on the right and adjust it the same as the left (repeat points 12+13) 27. Then delete the new vertical axis

28. Right click once more on the purple YTD series and repeat steps 9 + 10. 29. All that remains now is to change the fill of the series as you wish 30. If you wish to compare the current value (Blue bar above) to more than one set of data, simply add them in before step 19. 31. Choose a different colour or marker shape for each value and ensure they are plotted as lines. Note: If you want to add multiple lines, simply add rows below your data and ensure that all of the series plotted on the first vertical axis have a slight gap (less than the gap of the YTD figure plotted on the secondary axis).

Use a bar chart

This is a very similar procedure to the first method, but you need to do some calculations first. Once the calculations are done, the method to produce this type of graph is slightly easier, though you still need to use a secondary vertical axis. Advantages

Slightly more beautiful (in my opinion) Slightly easier to create the charts Can show percentages or real values if single line chart

Disadvantages

Some calculations needed Multiple line charts can only show percentage completion or normalised data

Method (multiple lines)

1. Copy and paste the data below into an excel spreadsheet 2. Create five new columns with the titles as shown: 3. The calculation for the YTD column is as follows: =B28/$F28 where column B is the original YTD column and column F is the original Max column. 28 is the current line. Note the $ symbol before the column F. This prevents Excel from transposing the column when we copy and paste the formula to the other rows. 4. 5. 6. 7. Copy and paste this formula until it fills each row of the new YTD column. Copy and paste the formula again into the new Poor, OK and Max columns. In the new column 2012 simply type in 0.3% and paste it for each row In the new column Max, type in the formula below, where column K is the original max column, column J is the original 2012 column and column P is the new 2012 column. Again 28 is the current line. =K28-J28-P28 8. Copy and paste this formula until it fills each row of the new Max column. 9. Highlight all of the new columns except for the new YTD column. 10. Insert a 100% stacked column bar chart. 11. Adjust the vertical axis to show minimum 0% and maximum 100%.

12. Delete the legend. 13. Select the new YTD column and copy it. 14. Click on the graph and paste it in. 15. Right click on the new YTD series and press Ctrl+1. 16. Choose to plot this series on the secondary axis. 17. Ensure the gap width is set to 25o%. 18. With the format series box still open, click ont one of the other series and change the gap to 50%.

19. Close the formatting window. 20. Adjust the second vertical axis as per point 11, then delete it.

21. Right click on the YTD series and choose change series chart type. Select the standard clustered 2D bar.

22. Right click on the YTD column again and choose select data 23. Click on the button to edit the horizontal data and select the column with the Data 1, Data 2, labels. (If the horizontal axis doesnt update, you assigned the horizontal axis of the other columns not the YTD column.) 24. In the graph above, you can just see some purple lines near the end of the graph. These are the target lines. Adjust the size of these by altering the value in the new target column, for example change 0.3% to 0.5% and the line will become thicker. 25. Format the other series as you wish. 26. The last two series (green and cyan above) should be formatted the same as they both represent the Max

area.

Create the bullet graph within a cell using a formula

Advantages:

Final file size will be much smaller Much easier to adjust data and add new lines Much easier to create

Disadvantages:

Not quite as beautiful Can only have the comparison with one line of data

Method 1. Copy and paste the data below into an excel spreadsheet (see the cell version tab of bullet_graphs).

2. Please note there is no Max column! 3. Add the new columns as shown below. 4. In the first row of the new YTD column paste the following formula, where column B is the original YTD column and column D is the Target column: =ROUND(B6/$D6*20,0) 5. In the first row of the new 2012 column paste the following formula, where column C is the original 2012 column and column D is the Target column: =ROUND(C6/$D6*20,0) 6. In the first row of the new Target column simply type in the number 20. 7. In the first row of the new Poor column paste the following formula, where column E is the original Poor column and column D is the Target column: =ROUND(E6/$D6*$I6,0) 8. In the first row of the new OK column paste the following formula, where column F is the original OK column and column D is the Target column: =ROUND(F6/$D6*$I6,0) 9. Copy and paste this row of formula down to all of the other rows of data. 10. We now need to create the bullet graph. 11. You will need 20 columns, reduced in size to 0.75. 12. If you have 8 rows of data in excel displayed in rows 6 to 13, then in the first column where you want to put the bullet chart in row 14 type the number 1. 13. The next column should be number 2 and so on until you reach 20. 14. In the row below this, type in the three symbols , one in each cell. We will use these to create the current status line. 15. In the first row, first cell, type in the formula below:

=IF(M$14=$H6,IF(M$14<=$G6,$AD$15,$AE$15),IF(M$14<=$G6,$AC$15,"))

Column M is the first column of the bullet graph we are creating, line 14 is the line of numbers we created in steps 12 and 13. o Column H is the values shown in the new 2012 column. o Column G is the values shown in the new YTD column. o Columns AC, AD and AE are where in line 15 we put the three symbols . o Be very careful with the $ symbol. 16. Copy and paste this formula across the 20 columns and down the rows of data. 17. Your bullet graph should now look something like this:
o

18. Highlight the cells of the bullet graph and click on conditional formatting.

19. Set up the three rules as shown below:

20. Hide rows 14 and 15 and your chart is done!

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An Excel Tutorial:

How to Create Bullet Graphs To Replace Gauges in Excel

Bullet graphs present the same information that dashboard gauges do, but they're smaller and easier to read. This tutorial shows to how to create your own bullet graphs in Excel.
by Charley Kyd July, 2006 Share This Page (Update: Several people have pointed out that when actual values are negative, the original bullet graph gave distorted results. One simple change in the formula for cell F4 below corrects this problem. This article now shows the correct formula.) Business presentations desperately need a replacement for dashboard gauges. Gauges consume too much space in a report. They use excessive "chart junk." And Excel does them badly. Stephen Few has invented an excellent replacement. Several months ago I reviewed Steve's two recent books, Information Dashboard Design and Show Me the Numbers. In his Design book, Steve described his bullet graph, shown here: Click here to download working models of Excel bullet graphs.

This graph presents the same information that a gauge would. But it doesn't suffer from the gauge's many problems. Because bullet graphs are such an improvement on gauges, I've worked to come up with a reasonable implementation for them in Excel. Like the bullet graphs in Steve's book, the Excel versions can be either horizontal (bar charts) or vertical (column charts), as illustrated above and