Comments on: How to create waterfall chart in Excel (bridge chart)

This article looks at creating basic graphs and at a special chart type – the Waterfall chart in Excel. Read on to find out what a waterfall chart is and when you can find it useful. You'll learn what tools can help you with creating waterfall charts in Excel 2016, 2013. Continue reading →

Comments page 6. Total comments: 161

  1. Brilliant, thank you.

  2. Thank you very much , the way it is explain its fantastic

  3. It solves my problem. Thank you.

  4. What an excellent article, perfectly articulated and demonstrated, this is impressive work.

    Thank you for taking time to publish this.

  5. how can a water fall chart be created using all positive values

  6. dude can you please send all chart making step...

  7. hi,

    its really useful every one and I want all chart how to make it easily I need some more explanation other its good work thanks to all and am working fully excel and PowerPoint I want to know some technical steps that's useful to my work thanks that's all thanks to all dude.

  8. Dear Jeo
    can you please send us link of video.

    thanks

  9. Hello

  10. I have a waterfall chart but in the first column only the fill the start and end is filled with a line a dark line on top any idea how is done
    Any idea?

  11. Ekaterina - thank you for the great tutorial. I really enjoyed creating a waterfall graph to highlight a GM bridge by significant customers. Could not have done this without your Tutorial.

  12. It doesn't seem to work with negative values when the base starts at zero. Anyone else having this issue?

  13. Hi Ekaterina,

    Thanks for your tutorial. Unfortunatelly it does not work for negative values:-(

    David

  14. How can I separately show the Start and End balances from the increase or base numbers? If I enter the balances in the Rise column,they´ll have the same colour as rises in the chart. If I enter them into the base column, they will disappear.
    Thanks for your help!

  15. Hello,
    First of all, thanks for the great tutorial.
    I have following problem:
    the Rise column appears appropriately, beginning always at base level, but the Fall column always begins at zero level. I tried to change the sequence between Base, Fall and Rise but the Fall always is below the 2 others.
    How can I move the Fall chart above Base?
    Thanks for your answer in advance!

    1. I found the mistake: my numbers in the Fall column were negative. :)

  16. Thank you! Very well explained.

  17. Thank you! It is very easy to make waterfall chart with you help.

  18. Thanks for this, had never even heard of this kind of graph until I got asked to produce one. Good, simple instructions.

  19. Great job. This was incredibly helpful!

  20. Thank You!

  21. I found that in summing the 'base' column it was adding all 3 items together rather than minusing the 'fall' figure, I counteracted this by adding a double minus symbol in the equation.

  22. Dear all,
    I have been trying to drawn the waterfall chart as your tutorial but one thing i should ask about the data labelled of negative in fall column, in my spreadsheet it could not have minus sign. How can i fix it?
    Thank you for your fast reply

  23. and what if the base is <0? I think this dos'nt work

  24. Awesome...Thanks for such nice explanation and guidance. It help me a lot.

  25. Excellent tutorial. Thanks for the time taken to prepare and explain. god bless you!!!

  26. I was wondering how you get the blocks to go below the x axis if the data is made up of many negative values. Currently if there are lots of negatives then they just sit on the x axis and don't go below.

    1. To get negative bars below the x axis, you need 2 further datasets. A green one for ascending bars and a red one for descending bars. Then set the number values so bars that cross the x axis are made in 2 pieces: One piece above the x axis and one below. HTH

  27. Its amazing. Wonderfully explained. Going through this step by step even a layman can prepare the Waterfall Chart. Thanks a lot.

  28. This was very helpful! Can you please do one on how to create the same chart but this time with various components that make up the data. For ex. lets say there were 4 different departments that makes up your sales number of 4,000. How do you show the 4 different departments on 1 bar with different colors and what each of their sale numbers were?

  29. Thank you for this. Ridiculous deadline has been met...

  30. Thank you, very straight forward

  31. How did you get the negative sign to be shown on the data label values? Also my numbers are different starting the month of May. I checked my formulas few times and it looks fine but my end value is 6835! Thanks

  32. Thanks for a great Tutorial !

    One Question, how are you getting minus sign in the data labels for negative values? All the values in fall column are positive?

    Thanks,
    Sam

    1. I managed to get the negative sign by going into 'Format data labels'> Number> Type (in 2013 version or Format Code in 2007 version) (default says General), add a - in front of the General.

      1. Thanks a lot, it worked !

        Also, is there a way to get data labels on the top and outside the bars? Excel does not provide a default option for this.
        Usually suggested method is to create a total series on top of stacked columns and hide the bars. In this case that will also not be possible

  33. Great tutorial, thank you. Thanks also for explaining exactly what this chart is for.

    1. I managed to get the negative sign by going into 'Format data labels'> Number> Type (in 2013 version or Format Code in 2007 version) (default says General), add a - in front of the General.

      1. Thank you for making a comment on how to get the negative sign added.

  34. How to build the chart we should use to show what would have happened if we had made the change in 2013

  35. Thank you very mach

  36. This is brilliant. Saves purchasing a 3rd party add-in to achieve the same thing.

    To manually color the first and last bars, click it once (this will select the whole series), then click it again (this will select the single bar). Right click and choose 'Shape fill'.

    Well done Ekaterina. Thanks for sharing.

  37. Great Tutorial, thanks for taking the time and showing this first of all.

    Dookie - I got rid of the zeros by clicking on each individual data point and deleting them. Can the original poster please advise if this is the method that was used as well?

    Jeff - The end series is shown in the example above as the data in cell B17 which is "7375" Must be included in the data used on the graph.

    Thanks again

      1. Thanks for these clear explanations! :-) It is so helpful.

      2. why so of the things that we search does not appear?

  38. How do you get the end series to show up?
    I agree having the actual spreadsheet would be a big help.

    1. Hello Jeff,

      I am sorry, we were on vacation. We'll be sure to add the spreadsheet as soon as we sort out all the comments.

      1. same problem as Jeff above and OZ below, full comment at bottom of page

        1. Was the spreadsheet ever added?

      2. 1. the end-bar cannot be colored independently...it cannot show up at all.
        2. in legend box, 'base' is there strangely without any legend display...

  39. What he said.

    Also, my series are showing zero's across the other series. How can I address this?

  40. Why couldn't you include the actual worksheet from this tutorial?

    1. As mentioned in a lot of comments below, we need a method that works for waterfalls that go below zero!

    2. What i am going to use

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