How to add automatic colored arrows in Excel graphs ?

Question

Hi,

I would like to add automatic arrows in my excel graphs. currently i have to place them manually. If a certain graph is higher that the other number then the arrow will be green or if lower then it will be red. It also displays a variance in percentage format.

is there a way to add arrows automatically insert of adding them manually. and if there is a colored arrow option that will be great.

below is an example:

if there is any solution to this please get back at your earliest.

these arrow adding takes up most of the time during the making of the presentation.

thanks

Answer 1

Hello,

sorry, but such specialised individual arrows cannot be created with Excel charts out of the box. You'd need to do some substantial VBA programming to work out the difference between the columns, the direction of the arrow, the length of the vertical arrow part, the label, and all that. It is also quite counter-intuitive how the arrow between the last two columns seems to go in a reverse direction. That is not good data visualisation. The reader of the chart will be confused.

You may want to consider a Waterfall chart type to illustrate wins and losses from one column to the next. A waterfall chart is a lot easier to read than these columns with ambiguous arrows pointing in different directions. 

If you are comparing budget vs. actual, just use a simple clustered column chart. Trust me, the reader of the chart will be able to see if the actual is higher or lower than the budget. You can add labels to highlight the magnitude of the change.

That will be way more efficient than these four seemingly equal columns, which appear in a confusing order (target - actual - actual - target) That is NOT good data visualisation. You make it HARD for the reader to understand what's going on. 

Try to make it EASY for the reader of your chart. If you need help with that, get a book by Stephen Few, eg. Now You See It, Show Me The Numbers, Information Dashboard Design, Signal and more. Google Stephen Few.

Answer 2

Do a Google search for "excel waterfall charts".  I use these all the time.