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Grouped Bar Chart Maker

Compare several series across the same categories, side by side. Upload your spreadsheet, pick the categories and the series, and publish an interactive grouped bar chart you can embed anywhere — free.

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¿Qué es un Grouped Bar Chart?

A grouped bar chart puts two or more bars next to each other inside every category, so you can compare series within a category and categories against each other in the same picture. It is the chart you reach for when one bar per category is not enough — this year against last year, three products across five regions, four brands across six quarters. Because every bar starts from the same baseline, it keeps the one property that makes bar charts trustworthy: length is directly comparable, everywhere on the chart. That is also why it beats a stacked bar whenever the individual series matter more than the total.

Cuándo usar un Grouped Bar Chart

  • You have two to four series to compare

    Two is ideal, four is the practical ceiling. Past that the groups blur together and the eye stops being able to track a colour across the chart.

  • Comparing series within a category is the point

    Which product wins in each region, whether this year beat last year in every month. Adjacent bars make that comparison as easy as it can be.

  • The totals do not matter

    If nobody will ask what the category adds up to, there is no reason to stack. Grouping keeps every value on a shared baseline where it can be read accurately.

  • Values are similar in size

    Small differences survive a grouped bar chart because every bar is measured from zero. Stacking would bury them in the middle of a segment.

Cuándo no usar un Grouped Bar Chart

  • The total is the story

    If the question is how big each category is overall, grouping hides it — the reader has to add bars mentally. Use a stacked bar chart instead.

  • You have many series

    Six or more bars per group produces a picket fence. Either facet into small multiples, one panel per series, or switch to a line chart.

  • The x-axis is continuous time

    Grouped bars over twenty-four months make a wall. Lines show the trend and let several series coexist without competing for width.

  • There are many categories and few series

    Thirty categories with two bars each is sixty bars. Consider a dumbbell chart, which shows the same two-value comparison in a fraction of the ink.

Cómo crear un Grouped Bar Chart

De una hoja de cálculo a un gráfico publicado, paso a paso.

01

Start from the grouped bar template

Open the PlotSet grouped bar chart template. It loads with sample data bound so you can see how categories and series map onto groups.

02

Shape your data as one row per category

The first column is the category, and each following column is a series. That wide layout is what the template expects, and it is usually how a spreadsheet already looks.

03

Upload or connect your data

Import a CSV or Excel file, paste from a spreadsheet, or connect a Google Sheet so the chart can be refreshed later.

04

Sort the categories deliberately

Alphabetical is almost never right. Sort by the series that matters, or keep a natural order like time. The ordering does more for readability than any styling choice.

05

Publish, embed or export

Publish for a live interactive embed where hovering a bar shows its exact value, or export a PNG, SVG or PDF.

Empieza con la plantilla de Grouped Bar Chart, que ya trae datos de ejemplo, y sustitúyelos por los tuyos.

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Las partes de un Grouped Bar Chart

Group
All the bars belonging to one category, drawn touching each other with a gap to the next group. The gap is what tells the reader where a category ends.
Series
One consistent colour across every group. Colour is the only thing linking a bar in the first group to its counterpart in the last, so it has to stay stable.
Shared baseline
Every bar starts at zero. This is the property that makes lengths comparable, and the reason a truncated axis breaks a bar chart more badly than any other type.
Category axis
The labelled positions along the chart. With long labels, a horizontal layout reads far better than rotated text.
Legend
Maps colour to series. Placing it above the plot, in series order, saves the reader a lookup on every bar.
Group gap
The space between categories. It should be clearly wider than the space between bars inside a group, or the grouping stops being visible.

Errores comunes con un Grouped Bar Chart

Starting the axis above zero

Bars encode value as length. Cutting the axis multiplies apparent differences and is the single most misleading thing you can do to this chart.

Too many series

Five or six bars per group is unreadable. Drop the series nobody asks about, or split into small multiples so each panel holds one comparison.

Reordering colours between charts

If a series is blue in one chart and orange in the next, readers will misread both. Fix the colour to the series across a whole report.

Using it when the totals matter

Grouped bars make readers add. If the sum is what the audience cares about, that is a stacked bar chart, not a styling preference.

Grouped Bar Chart: preguntas frecuentes

Comparing two or more series across the same set of categories, when both the within-category comparison and the across-category comparison matter.

Crea tu Grouped Bar Chart ahora

Gratis para empezar, con más de 300 plantillas. Sin tarjeta de crédito.

Crear un Grouped Bar Chart — gratisTodos los tipos de gráficos