Incell Bar charts – Revisited
I can never get tired of in-cell charts, whenever I get sometime, I try to experiment something on them. Here is an idea to design true incell column charts without using any add-ins or installing fonts. These charts can be fun to have on your project report or annual news letter or memos, they take as much time as munching a handful of M&Ms.
Download excel chart containing incell bar chart example
1. First we will create in-cell chart using rept() the usual way
This is the simple step. For a sample data, we can use rept() excel function to repetitively print a symbol. Thus, by repetitively printing “|” (pipe) we can create incell bar charts.
REPT() example is shown below:
=rept("|",10)will print||||||||||
2. Next combine several incell charts to create a column chart
We can combine various incell charts using excel’s concatenate() function or & operator. Better still you can use the concat() UDF. The trick here is we will delimit each chart with an ENTER key code by using char(10) as the delimiter. When used along with “wrap text” cell format this key code will force cell contents to a newline where the char code 10 is inserted.

3. Finally rotate the cell contents by 900 to make the charts vertical
Just select the cell contents, hit ALT+1, and set the alignment formats so that the text is vertically aligned in the cell, and turn on wrap text.

That is all, you will now have an incell bar chart that is vertical like the one below:

Pretty cool eh?
|
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At Chandoo.org, I have one goal, "to make you awesome in excel and charting". This blog is started in 2007 and today has 350+ articles and tutorials on using excel, making better charts.

Hey Chandoo,
I just came across your blog a few days back, and have been facinated by your blog, esp excel tips. Keep the good work going.
I am from IIMK 2007 batch.
Hey Chandoo,
I have been visiting your blog quite frequently ever since I discovered this during a google search. I had read your tip on incell charts earlier and then applied the text orientation and created the similar type of charts and got ‘wows’ from my colleagues. I wanted to share that with you earlier and others but found no link to upload a file on your site. Am glad that you finally suggested the same thing in your post today.
Keep up the good work
Hey Chandoo,
I have been visiting your blog quite frequently ever since I discovered this during a google search. I had read your tip on incell charts earlier and then applied the text orientation and created the similar type of charts and got ‘wows’ from my colleagues. I wanted to share that with you earlier and others but found no link to upload a file on your site. Am glad that you finally suggested the same thing in your post today.
Keep up the good work
Regards,
Pankaj Verma
awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nice charts.
To make a degree sign (°), hold ALT while typing 0176 on the numeric keypad. Nicer than superscripts, and the RSS feed is less likely to display it improperly.
@Simon – welcome to PHD.. thanks for the comments..
@Pankaj – you can always share your ideas in comments… or drop me an email at chandoo dot d at gmail dot com. thanks for the comments
@Sukhbinder .. thank you
@Jon.. that is an excellent tip there… I will use it from now on…
That’s really cool, but still not quite sparklines. Have you had any luck with making those?
Your site is really great, btw!
@ Cheryl: Thanks for the comments, yeah still no luck with them.. may be this weekend
Chandoo-
First time visitor, I will be back, your excel tips are great. Question about this worksheet. It is looking for an add-in in your c:drive for a “macros.xla”
Is this macros.xla a macro workbook which comes from installing one of the add-ins?
Ahh, after spending time with your blog I found the May 28 post. I’ll download that and give it a try
@Greg … welcome, thanks for the comments.
well, it is looking the addin for the concat udf which I used to create the incell chart. You can find out more about it : http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/05/28/how-to-add-a-range-of-cells-in-excel-concat/, I forgot include it the spreadsheet code as it was on my macros.xla add-in.
Let me know if you still have difficulty
How can I make incell charts in excel 2007?