Easiest Way to Create Dynamic Step Charts with Error Bars

Use this trick to create a super quick dynamic Step chart in Excel using a scatter plot and error bars (great graph to show price & inventory fluctuations).

Key Highlights:
Data Setup and Initial Charting: Converting data into an Excel table and inserting a scatter plot chart.
Applying Error Bars: Utilizing horizontal and vertical error bars to create step chart effects.
Custom Error Bar Lengths: Techniques to dynamically set error bar lengths based on date differences.
Data Label Optimization: Adding data labels for positive and negative values separately for clarity.
Final Visual Enhancements: Adjusting line thickness and color, and formatting the chart for a polished look.

What is a Step Chart? A Step Chart is great for visualizing variables that change on an irregular basis. For example price and inventory changes. If you create a line chart directly on the data set you will realize it doesn't show the correct visualization. There are different ways to get the right visualization. This videos shows you the easiest version. It uses a little chart trick called error bars.

Many thanks to Mehdi & to Bart for providing us with different methods of creating the Step Chart.

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#excel

[lesportautrement]

Bravo Medhi and Leila. Beautiful application to errors bars and table (to make the chart dynamic).

[yogeish]

Wow ! Just Wow. I had never used Error Bars before this.

[bricc]

Really awesome! Thank you to all three of you!

[Isixhubio]

Excellent presentation of this technique
And not only that!
Leila has masterfully refreshed the technique of creating step chart originating from MVP Tushar Mehta from 20 years ago

[Wulandari-grse]

Thanks Leila. That's great, made chart not boring anymore

[spuneet]

This is the right time to use error bars, thanks

[barttitulaerexcelbart]

Very nice video. Never worked with error bars. I always thought they were only for shares on the stock market. Good to see how you can modify these error bars.

[ash_m_]

Wow, I love this! This has inspired me to improve the stacked area charts that I'm currently using to show balance changes over time, as steps would be more suitable.

I have a dollar value recorded for each date within the given range, so I'm thinking the easiest method would be to use a stacked column chart and change the spacing between each column to 0 so that there is no space between each column.


I'm sharing this in case others find it useful, though I'm also interested to know if there are other methods to achieve this!

[DougHExcel]

Neat example of a step chart using error bars!

[Dev_Bartwal]

Thanks LG....💞

Awesome and smooth error bar.

Thanks to give us this amazing video without any cost. I respect your important time values 💞
Love the way of ur presentation
Lots of love🌷🌹🌷🌹

[yulinliu]

So many cool useful tricks! Thanks a lot for sharing!

[KisalaySomani]

Leila, discovered your channel very recently, but super impressed. This is awesome!

[kamrulzoha]

Wallahi
I have subscribed almost 100 ( YouTube channels ) But
I love your chart presentation more than any Excel expert

[abdsab]

Good day. thank you very much for your effort. we are waiting to have the downloadable workbook !

[MalinaC]

I love error bars :) Thank's for the EXCELlent film, Leila!

[mohfadel]

V. Good like it most.
👍Who noticed the tiny mistake of currency between y axis and the data inside the chart, $ and €?

[khalidalisubhanallah]

Bundle of Thanks Mam Nice Topic & Nice Video

[obelixzhang]

Awesome!0I am a big fun for the step chart, would u please post a video to how to combine step chart with column chart. I saw someone did it that was a mind blowing.BTW huge thanks for your excel sharing, i watched your first video from the latest one that meaned a lot to me.:)

[rrrprogram]

Woww nice.... I have learned a new thing

[SothearithKONGMrMuyKhmer]

Awesome Leila! Thanks for this useful video. 🥰
Just a tiny comment; the currency is EUR in table, but in step-chart, you select USD instead of EUR.

P.S: I’m in love watching your videos about Excel tips and skills. A huge thanks for your kindness. 👍

Best regards,
Sothearith