Excel Basics – What are Combination Charts and How to Make One?

Posted on January 5th, 2009 in Charts and Graphs , Learn Excel - 10 comments

This post is part of SpreadCheats series, read the rest of posts and cheat excel to become productive.

A combination chart is when you combine two different charts to make one. A popular example of combination charts is a line & bar graph combination. See below illustration:

excel-combination-charts

Today we will learn how to create a simple combination chart.

For our combination chart, we will use the following data of Sales & Profits
First we will make a simple bar chart for the sales data. Just select the Sales data table, go to insert > chart and specify type as “column chart” (this is the default selection btw). Once you are done, the chart looks like this:
Now, select the profits data, press ctrl+c to copy it to clip board, and select the sales chart you have created above, and press ctrl+v to paste this data in to the sales chart. Essentially we are adding one more series of data to the sales chart.
Now the chart should look like below. Right click on the new series (profits) and select “chart type”.
From the chart type dialog change the type of chart from “column” to “line” (or whatever other type you fancy)
That is all, you have successfully created a combination chart in excel.

Download the Excel Combination Chart Tutorial workbook and learn by experimenting.

As you can probably guess by now, there are some restrictions on what you can mix though. Best way to learn and understand combination charts is by experimenting. Just select one of the data series and change the chart type.

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Comments

Nick January 16, 2009

Hi Chandoo,

I am big big fan of your excel skills i try all your tips at home by downloading them but if u have them stored in dvd it would be of great help chandoo how can i become an expert in excel like you what do you recommend for me

Cristobal Colon January 23, 2009

hey chandoo, love your site, i use it every week for help with my job.

I’m trying to do the combo chart here but have 2 problems.

1 – you don’t describe how to the the axis data into the right hand side of the chart. Critical for comparing 2 sets of data with different scales (like volume and $). Is this possible?

2 – I’m having problems copying the data series. Doesn’t work for me at all, even when I download your sample spreadsheet. now I have Excel 2003, maybe this is a function of Excel 2007 only?

Thanks for the feedback!

Sr. Cristobal Colon

Chandoo January 24, 2009

@Cristobal: You are welcome

1. Adding another axis without going for combination charts is simple. You can select the particular series you want to move to other axis and go to format series and change the axis. Once the new axis shows up, scaling etc. is same as the primary axis.

2. Copy pasting data works in Excel 2003 as well. If this doesnt work, just use data dialog. Right click on chart, go to Select Data option and add more series. Once the series is added now change its chart type.

Let me know if you still have problems

Suresh April 7, 2009

Dear Chandoo,
I love your site very much as it was helping alot in my daily job. Could you please give me a tips about macro useage.

Thanks
Suresh

Geeta August 17, 2009

Good Morning Chandoo

I landed on your website just by accident, and I haven’t stopped surfing.
Eventhough I am at work and I should not be surfing but I am doing this because I cannot stop reading all the info you provide.

However, I do have a question, ofcourse it is work related..
I am suppose to create a dashboard and I don’t know how.
People are creating a speedometer etc. and I don’t know what they are talking about. I am using Excel 2003 and I don’t know if I can create a dashboard or not. Perhaps I can create something similar to a dashboard using MS Excel 2003..
Is there any help you can provide?(Ofcourse you can).
I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you, so much

Geeta

Chandoo August 18, 2009

@Geeta: Welcome to PHD. thanks for your comments.

You can learn about making excel based dashboards by visiting this page: http://chandoo.org/wp/management-dashboards-excel/

There are a great deal of tutorials and techniques linked from that page. Make sure you download the example worksheets and try them your self.

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