Excel Data Bars

Data Bars

Data Bars are premade types of conditional formatting in Excel used to add colored bars to cells in a range to indicate how large the cell values are compared to the other values.

Here is the Data Bars part of the conditional formatting menu:

Data Bars Example

Name Type 1 Speed Onix Rock 70 Drowzee Psychic 42 Hypno Psychic 67 Krabby Water 50 Kingler Water 75 Voltorb Electric 100 Electrode Electric 140 Exeggcute Grass 40 Exeggutor Grass 55

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You can choose any range for where the Highlight Cell Rule should apply. It can be a few cells, a single column, a single row, or a combination of multiple cells, rows and columns.

Let's apply the Data Bars conditional formatting to the Speed values.

"Data Bars", step by step:

1. Select the range C2:C10 for Speed values

2. Click on the Conditional Formatting icon in the ribbon, from Home menu
3. Select Data Bars from the drop-down menu
4. Select the "Green Data Bars" color option from the Gradient Fill menu

Now, all of the Speed value cells have a green bar showing how big the value is compared to the other values in the range:

Electrode has the highest value, 140, so the bar fills the entire cell.

The other bars are scaled relative to the highest value and 0 by default.

Exeggcute has the lowest value, 40, so this is the shortest bar. Though, it is larger than 0, so there is still a small bar.

Let's see what happens if we add a fictional Pokemon with a 0 Speed value:

The fictional Neutrinode has a Speed value of 0, so this becomes an invisible "minimum" bar.

Let's see what happens if we add another fictional Pokemon with a negative Speed value:

Now, the fictional Positrode has the lowest Speed value, -140, so this becomes an invisible "minimum" bar.

Notice that all the other bars have now been scaled relative to the new minimum (-140).

Neutrinode's Speed value of 0 is now in the middle between -140 and 140, so the cell has a bar filling half the cell.

Electrode still has the highest Speed value, 140, so this bar still fills the entire cell.