Switching to a 100% Stacked Column Chart in Excel 2007:-


It is very difficult for a reader to track the trends from one pie to the next when you are trying to show a trend by using multiple pie charts, as shown in the Figure (given below).



(It is very hard to track trends by looking at multiple pies.)

Instead of using pie charts, you can switch to one of Excel’s 100% charts. For example, in the 100% stacked column chart, Excel stacks the values from Series 1, Series 2, Series 3, and so on but scales the column so that each column is exactly the same height. This gives the effect of dividing a column into components, just as a pie chart would do.

Excel offers 100% versions of column charts, bar charts, area charts, and line charts. To find them, in the Insert Chart dialog, you look for charts where both the left and right elements are the same height. Look into the Figure (given below).



(These icons all create 100% stacked charts.)

Figure (given below) shows examples of 100% stacked column, area, bar, and line charts. The 100% stacked column chart is probably the easiest to interpret. In a 100% stacked chart, the reader is able to judge the growth or decline of both the first series and the last series.



(For year-over-year comparisons, a 100% stacked column chart is easier to read than multiple pie charts.)