Bar and Column Charts.

Bar and column charts are two of the most common chart types used in data visualization.

They are really useful for the comparison of different values. So if we want to see the highest to the lowest or the smallest to the largest then a bar or column chart is probably what you need to use.

Bar and column charts have axes and values.

So one field is used to group our plot the data on an x-axis and the other field is the numerical field that is used to plot the numbers, summing our averageing or even counting them.

Should we use a bar chart or a column chart does it matter? Well, there's very little difference between the two a bar chart. The bars are horizontal and a column chart is vertical.

Other than that, there's not really much difference. However data visualization is not just about creating the charts. It's about how the charts are interpreted and read by the audience.

And sometimes if we have large descriptive labels, for example, it might be easier for the audience to read if the chart was done as a bar chart so that way we can see the labels horizontally on the line. Whereas in the column chart the labels are slanted and slightly more difficult to read.

Bar charts can also be clustered or stacked. So we have to decide on which of these styles we would want to use.

Most people tend to go for clustered but stacked is also a useful one at various times.

Let's have a look to see how stacked and bar charts differ.

So here we have a cluster chart using the USD value by each of the asset classes.

If we create a stack chart, we see very little difference, in fact, there's no difference at all.

However, once we bring a legend field in and a legend field is really just another field that we can group the data with so in this example, we have nominal currency. So it's not just the total USD value for each asset class, so we can see a comparison side by side using nominal currency.

On a cluster chart it's side by side. But in a stack chart those values are stacked one on top of each other. It's not that one is right and one is wrong. It's just for example in the stack chart. It's easier to see the overall total whereas we don't see that so clearly in the clustered.

Let's do a workout and see how to create bar charts and column charts in Power BI.

So I'm connecting to an Excel workbook using the Home tab and Get Data.

And I'm going to create a column chart, first of all using data from the L4A assets worksheet.

So the first thing I'll do is I'll use my field list over at the right hand side.

And I can select from the field list the market value field.

I'll also bring in Asset Class 1 to group with.

And you can see here, it's defaulted to a column chart already. So if I just bring this into the center of the screen and open it up a little bit.

If I wish I can use the icons over here to change it to a different type. So instead of for instance having a clustered column, I'll change it to a clustered bar.

Now if I bring in another field such as nominal currency, so I'm just going to tick it here and I do have to be careful to see where it goes so I can see down underneath the chart types that it's been placed as a legend field. So that's okay and I can see my bar chart has no defaulted to clustered bar.

But if I change it to a clustered column, let's have a look. There we go.

Or I can even change it to a stacked. So if I change it now to a stacked bar, we'll get the overall total a little more clearly, and if I change it to start column we have the same.