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Grouped Column Chart Maker

Put two or more series side by side in every category, drawn as vertical columns. Upload your spreadsheet, pick the categories and the series, and publish an interactive grouped column chart you can embed anywhere — free.

免费创建 Grouped Column Chart查看图库

用 PlotSet 制作的实时 Grouped Column Chart

这不是截图，而是真实的交互式图表，嵌入方式与你的完全一致。

示例：Support tickets by channel, 2023-2025

什么是 Grouped Column Chart？

A grouped column chart draws one vertical column per series inside each category, with a gap between categories. It answers two questions at once: how the series compare inside a category, and how the categories compare with each other. Every column rises from the same baseline, so the eye can judge the lengths directly — the property that makes column charts trustworthy in a way that pie slices and stacked segments are not. It is the same chart as a grouped bar chart turned through ninety degrees, and the rotation is not cosmetic: columns give each category a narrow slot and plenty of height, which suits short labels, a time axis, and a small number of categories. Turn it on its side when the labels get long or the categories get numerous.

什么时候使用 Grouped Column Chart

  • Your categories are periods

    Quarters, years, months, school terms. Time reads left to right, so a column chart puts it where readers already expect it — and grouping lets you split each period by two or three series.

  • You have two to four series

    Two is ideal and four is the ceiling. Columns are narrower than bars at the same chart size, so a fifth series turns each group into a picket fence sooner than it would lying down.

  • The category labels are short

    Q1, 2024, Email, North. Short labels sit flat under their group and need no rotation. Once a label needs turning to fit, the chart is telling you to use horizontal bars.

  • You want the comparison inside each category to be exact

    Adjacent columns on a shared baseline is the most accurate comparison a chart can offer. If a reader will ask "which of these was bigger, and by how much", this is the shape that answers it.

  • The chart has to survive being wide

    Columns fill horizontal space naturally, which suits an embed running the full width of an article or a slide. A bar chart in the same box mostly produces white space.

什么时候不该用 Grouped Column Chart

  • The total per category is the point

    Grouping hides it — the reader has to add the columns up by eye. When the sum is what the audience cares about, that is a stacked column chart.

  • The labels are long, or there are many categories

    Rotated labels are slow to read and eat the plot area. Fifteen categories with three series is forty-five columns crammed under angled text. Turn it on its side: a grouped bar chart has as much room for labels as you need.

  • There are many periods and you want the trend

    Thirty-six months of grouped columns is a wall of ink where the shape of the change is invisible. Lines carry a trend better, and several of them can share a chart without competing for width.

  • You have five or more series

    Past four, colours become hard to hold in mind and each column is too thin to read. Split into small multiples — one panel per series, same axis — or move the series onto the category axis and facet the other way.

  • The series are parts of one whole

    If the series sum to 100 per cent by construction, grouping makes readers reconstruct the composition. A 100 per cent stacked column or a marimekko says it directly.

如何制作 Grouped Column Chart

从电子表格到已发布的图表，一步一步来。

01

Start from the grouped column template

Open the PlotSet grouped column chart template. It loads with sample data already bound, so you can see how the first column becomes the category axis and the rest become series.

02

Shape your data wide: one row per category

The first column holds the category — the quarter, the region, the channel. Every column after it is one series, and its header becomes the legend label. Most spreadsheets already look like this.

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 when the source changes.

04

Check the binding covers every series column

The values slot takes a range, not a single column — B-D for three series. If a series is missing from the chart, the range is the first place to look.

05

Fix the series colours and the category order

Keep a series the same colour everywhere it appears in your report. Sort categories by time if they are periods, and by the series that matters otherwise; alphabetical is almost never the right order.

06

Publish, embed or export

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

从已加载示例数据的 Grouped Column Chart 模板开始，再替换成你自己的数据。

打开模板

Grouped Column Chart 的组成部分

Group
All the columns belonging to one category, drawn touching each other. The group is the unit the reader compares within.
Group gap
The space separating one category from the next. It has to be visibly wider than the space between columns inside a group, or the grouping stops reading and the chart becomes an undifferentiated row of columns.
Series colour
The only thing linking a column in the first group to its counterpart in the last. It has to stay fixed across the chart, and across every other chart in the same document.
Shared baseline
Every column starts at zero. This is what makes heights directly comparable, and the reason a truncated y-axis damages this chart more than any other type.
Category axis
The labelled positions along the bottom. Horizontal labels are the design constraint of a column chart — when they no longer fit, the chart wants to be horizontal.
Value axis
The vertical scale. Four or five gridlines is usually enough; more competes with the columns for attention.
Legend
Maps colour to series. Above the plot and in series order, so the reader meets it before the columns rather than after.

Grouped Column Chart 的常见错误

Truncating the value axis

Columns encode value as height. Starting the axis at anything other than zero multiplies apparent differences, and it is the single most misleading thing you can do to this chart.

Rotating the category labels instead of rotating the chart

Angled text is a symptom, not a fix. If the labels do not fit horizontally, the data wants a grouped bar chart, where labels run along the axis at full length.

Too many series per group

Five or six thin columns per category is unreadable at any size, and worse on a phone. Drop the series nobody asks about, or split into small multiples.

Reordering series between charts

If 2024 is blue in one chart and orange in the next, readers misread both. Fix colour to series once, for the whole report.

Using it when the totals matter

Grouped columns make the reader add. If the category total is the headline, that is a stacked column chart — not a styling preference.

Leaving gaps for missing values

A series with no value in one category leaves a hole that reads as zero. Either say the value is missing in the tooltip and the caption, or drop the category.

Grouped Column Chart：常见问题

A chart that places two or more vertical columns side by side inside each category, so you can compare the series within a category and the categories against each other on one shared baseline.

立即制作你的 Grouped Column Chart

免费开始，300 多个模板，无需信用卡。

免费创建 Grouped Column Chart全部图表类型