How to Create a Stacked Bar Chart in Google Sheets

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a stacked bar chart in Google Sheets.

The stacked bar chart takes a normal bar chart and expands it to look at numeric values over two categorical variables. A standard bar chart has a number of sub-bars stacked end to end, each of which corresponds to a level of the second categorical variable.

A conventional bar chart’s principal goal is to compare numeric values between levels of a categorical variable. Each level of the category variable is represented by a single bar, with the length of each bar reflecting the numeric value. A stacked bar chart accomplishes this purpose as well as a secondary goal.

When we care about the relative decomposition of each primary bar dependent on the levels of a second categorical variable, we should use a stacked bar chart. Each bar now has multiple sub-bars, each of which corresponds to a level of a second categorical variable. Although the total length of each stacked bar remains unchanged, we can now observe how the secondary groups contributed to that total.

Once you are ready, we can get started by using real-life scenarios to help you understand how to create a stacked bar chart in Google Sheets.

Creating a Stacked Bar Chart

Before we begin we will need a group of data to be used to create the stacked bar chart.

Step 1

Make sure your group of data is displayed in a clean and tidy manner. This will help us to create the stacked bar chart easily.

Step 2

Select the entire data cell, choose Insert, and select Chart.

Step 3

By default, Google Sheet will use the selected group of data to generate a column chart. Simply change the chart to a stacked column chart in the Chart Editor.

Step 4

Now, you can customize the stacked bar chart to your preference. We will change the chart title to ‘Sales of Each Branch’ for a better representation of the line chart. Also, to emphasize the chart title, we will change the text color to black, bold it, and also align it to the center.

Step 5

Once you are done editing and customizing the stacked bar chart, it will look something like this.

Summary

That’s all there is to it. You are welcome to copy the example spreadsheet below to see how it is done. The most crucial lesson is to enjoy yourself while doing it.

Example Spreadsheet: Make a copy of the example spreadsheet

In this tutorial, I covered how to make categories in google sheets. Want more? Check out all the Google Sheets Tutorials.