Bar chart with lower & upper bounds [tutorial]

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Bar & Column charts are very useful for comparison. Here is a little trick that can enhance them even more.

Lets say you are looking at sales of various products in a column chart. And you want to know how sales of a given product compare with a lower bound (last year sales) and an upper bound (competition benchmark). By adding these boundary markers, your chart instantly becomes even more meaningful.

Bar chart with lower & upper bounds in Excel - how to create it?

How to create a chart with lower & upper bounds?

1. Select data and make a column chart

Lets say your data looks like this. Select it all and insert a column chart from insert ribbon.

Insert column chart from your data - bar & column chart with lower and upper bounds in Excel

2. Convert lower & upper columns to lines

Using Excel 2013's combination chart screen to select chart types for each series of data is so easyIn Excel 2013:

  1. Right click on either lower or upper bound columns.
  2. Choose “Change series chart type…”
  3. Select “line chart with markers” as the chart type for both lower & upper series
  4. Done!

In earlier versions:

  1. Right click on lower series
  2. Choose “Change series chart type…”
  3. Select “line chart with markers”
  4. Repeat the process for upper series
  5. Done
  6. Related: How to create combination charts in Excel?

After this step, your chart looks like this:

Column chart with lower & upper bounds as lines

3. Set line color to “no line” and format markers

This is easy. Just set the line color to “no line” and format the markers so that they are prominent.

Format the markers & line and your column chart with lower & upper bounds is ready

Your column chart with lower & upper bounds is ready.

Bonus step: Custom shapes for lower & upper bounds

If you want something fancy, you can use custom shapes for lower & upper bounds, as shown below.

Column chart with lower & upper bounds marked by custom shapes using Excel

To get this:

  1. Draw custom shapes using drawing tools in Insert ribbon.
  2. Make sure they are really small (else the markers will be shown at wrong places)
  3. Copy the shape (CTRL+C)
  4. Select marker series for which you want this shape.
  5. Paste (CTRL+V)
  6. Done!!!

Video tutorial of Column chart with lower & upper bounds

Here is a video tutorial of column chart with lower & upper bounds.

This video is also part of my Excel School program. If you like the video, you are going to love our Excel School program, where more than 50 such videos will help you become awesome in Excel.

Click here to know more about Excel School & join us.

Download the chart workbook

Click here to download the workbook. It contains column chart with lower & upper bounds example, detailed instructions and custom shape example.

When do you use lower, upper bounds in your charts?

I use this technique all the time. I apply markers for extra data like average, KPI targets, last year values etc. Here is one more example.

What about you? Do you use lower, upper bounds in your charts? In which scenarios you apply them? Please share your experiences using comments.

For more charting tips…

Make sure you check out our charting page. It has 100s of Excel tutorials, templates & design examples on charts.

If you still want more, consider joining Excel School. You will be a charting pro soon.

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28 Responses to “2010 Calendar – Excel Template [Downloads]”

  1. [...] Download and print the calendars today. You can add notes to individual dates or complete … [...] Uni Ego / Free 2010 Calendar – Download and Print Year 2010 Calendar today [...]

  2. William says:

    Afternoon,

    I have one similar calander that I added conditional formatting to so that I could highlight any planned factory holidays. I think i "borrowed" the formula from another calander so I won't post it here.

    I also added week numbers to it using the formula =WEEKNUM(MAX(C6:I6)) Where C6:I6 is the range of dates in that give week. It works fine on most of the months but return strange values on other months (Week 6 in October?) I can't see any logic behind why it does this.
    Any suggestions for an alternative formula to give the week numbers?

    Regards,

    William

  3. Miguel says:

    Hi Chandoo,
    I've added a new feature on your spreadsheet.
    This control can be useful for all the sheets where you need to check dates.

    Cheers

    http://cid-69a78592a23a8438.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/2010-calendar%5E_Miguel.xls

  4. Nimesh says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    Nice calendar.
    Till now whichever calendar I saw in Excel, it contained only the outline sheet.
    Good to see monthly views and the mini view too.
    Liked the mini view much. 🙂

    -Nimesh

  5. Chandoo says:

    @William: This weeknum may be because the input dates to max are not properly formatting as excel dates.

    Good tip on the conditional formatting and holidays btw...

    @Migueal: Now that is super awesome. This is the reason why I love to blog. Readers will always one up me with such cool alternatives. Thank you for sharing this with us.

    @Nimesh: You are welcome 🙂

  6. Shish says:

    is it possible to get the Notes section on the outline page to display the notes added to the month page for a specific date?

    So if you add thing for January 2nd, and then select January 2nd those notes appear on the outline page

  7. Chandoo says:

    @Shish... You can do that using some formula magic. I would not recommend pushing excel to that as outlook / google calendar / icalc etc. do exactly that much more elegantly.

  8. Jörg says:

    Happy christmas to all of you!
    This is really awesome. The nicest calender I've seen for Excel. I also like Miguels version of the sheet.

    Just one "feature" is missing to me. As I live in Germany - where weeks start on Monday - I'd like to change this. Could someone please give me a hint how to do this?

    Thanks in advance

    Jörg

  9. Pedro says:

    Hi Chandoo, I’ve added some new features on your spreadsheet with your permission.

    Check it here:
    http://cid-6b219f16da7128e3.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/Calendar%5E_Pedro.xlsm

    Miguel, this calendar is translated to Spanish language.

    Jörg, this new approach allows us to start weeks on Monday.

    Also it's possible to start weeks on Sunday if you enable Excel macros and push the arrows.
    Best Regards,
    Pedro.

  10. Chandoo says:

    @Pedro.. superb stuff.. thanks for sharing the file with all of us.

  11. Pedro says:

    Hi Chandoo, for dates before March 1, 1900 our calendars are wrong.
    In Microsoft Excel, DATE, EOMONTH, WEEKDAY functions return an incorrect result between Monday, January 1, 1900 and Wednesday, February 28, 1900.
    See this page: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/214326/en-us/
    Microsoft Excel incorrectly assumes that the year 1900 is a leap year in all Excel versions.
    That's the reason why our calendar versions only work from March, 1, 1900 until December, 31, 9999.
    Your comments are welcome.
    Pedro.

  12. Chandoo says:

    @Pedro.. Thanks for pointing that out. wow... This reminds me of the Joel Spolsky's first BillG review - http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html (read it, I am sure you would love it.) when Bill out of blue asks about date time implementations for VBA (which Joel is the program manager for...)

    Thanks for sharing the URL too... Here is a specially made, chocolate sprinkled, extra fluffy donut for you 🙂

  13. Pedro says:

    Hi Chandoo, thanks a lot for the donut but I prefer it without chocolate!

    Always it's good to know a little history of Excel.
    The Joel Spolsky’s last BillG Excel review was about the "Hall of Tortured Souls"
    (See this Excel 95 Easter Egg here: http://www.eeggs.com/items/719.html)

    Do not miss the humor!

  14. Pedro says:

    @Chandoo.. I just return with a new calendar version.
    http://cid-6b219f16da7128e3.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/calendar-pedrowave.xltx

    It helped me to practice conditional formatting, formulas to show check boxes, data validation drop down list, find out Thanksgiving Day's date for any year, how to find dates of public holidays using Excel, all reading your wonderful posts!

  15. Pedro says:

    Perpetual Calendar Spanish version starting weeks on Monday:
    http://cid-6b219f16da7128e3.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/calendario-pedrowave.xltx
    Main characteristics:
    - Not macros.
    - Select a year from 1900 to 9999 with a dropdown listbox.
    - All date fields with the real date format.
    - Easy language change of day of the week and month names because are also dates.
    - Hide Saturdays and/or Sundays.
    - Week starting on Sunday or Monday.
    - Week and month numbers.
    - Hyperlink between sheets.
    - Consistent colors to Holidays, Diary and Events dates.
    - Easy change of Holidays by country.
    - Include 80 World Days and you can add more.
    - A diary with my birthday and 50 more programable appointments.
    - Check box to hide individual dates or all.
    - Holidays, diary and events text are showed on each month's sheet.
    - Ranges defined with Name Manager variables.
    I'll appreciate if you make me some suggestions to improve this calendar.
    Pedro.

  16. Joco1114 says:

    Please, I need help!
    I like all calendar from Pedro, thank you for them. Let me show my problem:

    I have 2 excel cells (for example AE12 and AE13) which mean the starting and the ending date of my duty. I need a macro to insert sheets with label YEAR. MONTH (for example 2010. August or similar) with the proper datas between the two dates. Is it possible?

    Thank you for reading me and sorry about my terribel english! 🙂

  17. Peter says:

    Hello Pedro,

    Thanks so much for the modified calendar template. I love the extra functionality you added. Is there any way you could upload an unlocked version? I wanted to change some of the comments and data validation so I could use it for one of my applications.

    As for feedback on potential improvements, with all the additions you made the file runs pretty slow. I'm sure this has to do with all the interconnectivity between the various tabs, but if there is a way to use less memory via more efficient formulas or something else I think this would make it easier to use. I have a brand new computer and with it running alone the response was pretty slow. One of the changes I'm making is changing the order of the months to match my company's fiscal year, so maybe something to automate a change like that could be useful.

    Cheers,

    Peter

  18. Pedro Wave says:

    Peter, my calendars are unlocked but you need Excel 2007 and 2010 versions to open them.

    Now I return with a new Programmable Task Calendar:
    http://cid-6b219f16da7128e3.office.live.com/view.aspx/.Public/Calendario%20de%20Tareas.xlsx

    Wath an introductory video here:
    http://pedrowave.blogspot.com/2010/10/programmable-task-calendar.html

    This new calendar allows to select the start month to match the school and fiscal year.

  19. ASA says:

    This is great stuff Chandoo and company

    Wanted to know if someone had built something similar

    I need to store one Excel Sheet on this calendar that has all the holidays

    US Holidays appear in RED
    UK Holidays appear in Blue
    Meetings appear in Green
    Submissions appear in Orange

    Is there a way I can store the list in a separate worksheet and all the calendars get updated with this?

    Thanks

  20. divya says:

    please tell me "how to convert Rs.10000/- in to words through excel formula

  21. [...] is all! http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/12/11/2010-calendar-excel-template-downloads/ See more Templates at http://www.vertex42.com/ Share this:Like this:LikeBe the first to like this [...]

  22. Kerisa says:

    Greetings,

    Thanks for this wonderful excel vacation tracker. I notice that the tracker only has three months November, December and January 2015, however, I would like to add the other ten months for 2014. Can you please instruct me on how I can add the other months?
    Thanking you in advance.

  23. kanu bhatia says:

    Hi Chandoo,
    Calendar: can this be printed as single sheet 8.5x11 inch per month
    kanu

  24. Rahul says:

    WOW! I just searching some of like this, that help me.
    Thank you for sharing.

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