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How do you change the width of charts columns?

Anonymous
2012-05-09T18:36:22+00:00

Hello, 

In the most recent chart I've made the columns of my chart look like pin strips. I'd like to make them much wider. 

My previous chart does not have this problem. 

The difference between the two is the previous chart only has 1 unit for the horizontal axis while the current chart has 5 units. I have no idea how to change the number of units as neither has chart has x-axis coordinates.

I'd appreciate any help you can offer.

Thanks!

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2012-05-13T02:50:01+00:00

The usual way to change the width of the vertical bars in a Column chart type is to change the gap width (in all versions of Excel, Windows and Mac).

Select the data series by clicking on one of the bars (just to be sure the data series is selected).

Right-click or control-click, and choose Format Data Series from the context menu.

In the Format Data Series dialog box, select Options.

Then change the Gap width.

For wider bars, make the gap width smaller.

For narrower bars, make the gap width larger.

-  Mike Middleton, www.TreePlan.com

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Bob Jones AKA CyberTaz MVP 435.8K Reputation points
2012-05-11T17:44:50+00:00

As is often the case, your problem is being caused by merged cells. Fortunately, this is one of the lesser evils inflicted by that abominable "feature" :-) If you unmerge the cells & recreate the chart you should be fine.

As an alternative, you could create formula links elsewhere that refer to cells C50, C51, E50 & E51 then generate the chart based on the cells containing the formula links. Just be sure to switch the Rows/Columns plotting.

Regards,

Bob J.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-02-19T02:31:57+00:00

    If the Y-axis data series is dates, right-click the Y-axis and select Format Axis. In the Format Axis dialog, select Axis Options, and for Axis Type, select Text axis. The columns will appear "normal" and setting the Gap Width will work.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-12-18T21:56:39+00:00

    Hi-

    I just had the same issue.  Is your data based on dates?  If so, changing your dates to text will make the columns a much wider.  As dates, Excel is looking at the values as a single day out of the year.  An easy way to change them to text is to:

    1. paste the dates into Word
    2. change the format in Excel to 'text'
    3. paste the dates from Word back into Excel as 'text'

    Happy Holidays,

    Ria

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-05-21T03:32:37+00:00

    Hi,

    I had very thin columns too, but no merged cells. I had dates as column names. Once I changed them from the date format to the text format, the columns went back to normal size.

    Doreen O

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