How to use Excel to make waterfall diagrams

How to use Excel to make waterfall diagrams

As the name implies, a waterfall diagram means that the arrangement of the data points in the chart appears to be dangling from the waterfall by clever setting. This effect of the graphics can reflect the data at different times or affected by different factors and results, but also can intuitively reflect the changes in the data, in the Excel worksheet is very practical value. The following figure illustrates the example of how to use Excel to make a waterfall chart.

First, look at the effect of the above diagram: The top half is shaded, and the lower part is transparent. We might have thought that such a chart would have used a different series of data to achieve the dangling effect of the data series with different sets of color settings.

The specific method of action is:

1. Prepare data

In column C, add a "placeholder" secondary column.

C2 cell Write 0,c3 cell write formula

=b$2-sum (B$3:B3)

Copy down.

2. Create a chart

Click any cell in the data range, insert Column chart, select Stacked Column

The effect of inserting a stacked column chart is as follows:

3. Clear unwanted items

Click the legend, press the DELETE key, click the grid line, press the DELETE key to remove, click the vertical axis, and then press the DELETE key to delete. The effect is as follows:

Right-click the horizontal axis, format axis major tick mark type select None

The effect is set as follows: