Create interactive bar charts to make a lasting impression

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Interactive bar charts have a place in online presentations, slides, social media posts, reports, and ebooks. Across multiple industries, whenever you have to compare categories of information to show trends and changes over time, a bar chart is an effective way to tell that story. 

Using interactive bar charts elevates the experience by allowing viewers to move their mouse over key data points and learn more about those specific findings. This chart shows the different sources that generate electricity and how, over time, those sources change. By allowing the user to drag their mouse over data points, and adding select animations, what would normally be a run-of-the-mill chart is elevated and more engaging to viewers.

You can make a bar graph in 5 easy steps:

1. Join Infogram to make your own bar graph.

2. Select a bar graph type (bar, column, stacked, grouped, radial, or progress).

3. Upload or copy and paste your data.

4. Customize labels, colors, and fonts.

5. Download your bar graph or embed it on your website.

1. Label the axes to give your viewer context.

2. Put value labels on bars for easy reading.

3. Avoid using a 3D perspective or shadows as it makes your data difficult to see.

4. Use one single color or varying shades of the same color. You can also highlight one column in particular if that is the main message you want to convey.

If you shared or embedded your chart online, anyone can see the data behind each bar, column, line, or pie slice in your chart by simply hovering over it with the mouse. However, some charts allow you to display the values inside the chart itself. This can be useful if you plan on downloading your chart as a static image or a PDF file, where interactivity is not supported.

To display values in your chart:

1. Click to select your chart.

2. Expand the Chart properties tab in the right sidebar. 

3. Enable the Show values option.

In column and bar charts, you can also choose to display the values outside of the bars and columns. Enable the Show values outside option in the right sidebar. 

Sometimes the values will not display even when the Show values option is enabled. This happens when there is not enough space to display the values within the bars or columns. In these cases, you need to increase the chart size.

In single chart or map layouts, this can be done by increasing the width of the infographic.

In pie charts, the option to show values is called Show callouts. You can also display the category name next to the value by enabling the Callout name option. You can automatically calculate what the variables represent in percentages, by enabling the Callout percentage option.

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With Infogram, you can create dynamic charts and maps that update live and in real-time. We support two integrations for live updates:

1. Google Sheets

2. A JSON feed

As soon as the data changes in the Google sheet or JSON file, the chart or map it is linked to will automatically update, even if it’s embedded.

Note: Infogram doesn't support formulas, only raw data. If you use formulas or other scripts in your Google sheet, the calculations may not show on Infogram after the import.

To create a live-updating chart or map via Google Sheets:

1. In a project, click the Add chart (or Add map button) in the left side panel and choose the chart type that best fits the information you want to display. If you are not sure which one to pick, try adding any chart type to your project and double-click it to review the example data. Use this data layout in the Google sheet you want to import into a chart.

Tip: Most Infogram charts can only display numeric data (line, column, bar, pie, bubble, etc.). However, some are designed to display text information as well (word cloud, treemap). If your data source contains some columns with numbers and some with text, you will need to:

Separate textual ones and visualize them in their own text-based chart or import the data into a Table chart that supports numbers + text inside one chart.

2. Double-click the chart to open its editor. Above the data table, you will see data import buttons. Choose to Add a Google Drive document. 

3. Connect your Google Drive account. All Google sheets will be displayed in the list.

Pro tip: You can remove Google Drive and Infogram integration via the Google account settings. When you do, existing live-updating charts will lose their connection.

4. Choose the spreadsheet with the data you need from your Google Drive.

5. When you edit information in your Google sheet, it will automatically update in your Infogram chart. The chart refreshes data every 30 seconds to a minute. These changes will automatically apply to your embeds and shared URL link.

Note: When changing the order of tabs in a Google sheet, the tabs will not automatically shift in your Infogram project. Each data tab of your Infogram project draws information from the numerically corresponding tab in the Google sheet, therefore you have to manually rename the tabs in your Infogram chart.

To create a live-updating chart or map via a JSON feed:

1. Add a chart or map to your project canvas by clicking the Add chart or Add map buttons in the left side panel.

2. Double-click the chart to open its editor. Above the data table, you will see data import buttons. Choose the Add JSON feed option.

3. Use this example to understand how to format your JSON feed. To create a multi-tab chart or map, use the following example. 

4. Now, when you edit the information in your JSON feed, it will automatically update in your Infogram chart. The chart refreshes data every 30 seconds to a minute. These changes will automatically apply to your embeds and shared URL link.

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Each chart comes pre-populated with sample data to show how data should be formatted when it's inserted into the chart. To add data to a chart, you can:

1. Copy and paste

2. Import via integrations

To add data by copying and pasting:

1. Click the Add chart icon on the left side panel and select the chart you wish to use. Drag and drop it into the editor. 

2. Double-click to access the chart's data table. 

3. Select a cell and start typing or use keyboard controls: 

 A. CTRL/CMD+C to copy

 B. CTRL/CMD+X to cut 

 C. CTRL/CMD+V to paste

 D. CTRL/CMD+Z to undo the last edit

4. Right-click a cell to access a menu with styling options:

Note: The option Add/change a link will require you to have a Business subscription or higher. 

To import data into a chart: 

Alternatively, you can import data into charts from your computer, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, or databases. Infogram supports the following formats: .xls, .csv, Google Sheets, JSON, and databases. 

Note: Infogram doesn't support formulas, only raw data. If you import data from Excel, make sure it has only plain data in the cells, as the formulas won't work on Infogram.

1. Double-click to open the chart's data table. 

2. Use one of the file import buttons above the data table. 

The first time you do this, you will need to authorize Infogram's access to some of your external data sources (Google Sheets, JSON, databases), where a connection needs to be created for live updates. Read more in the article about creating live-updating charts and maps. All other sources (your computer and Dropbox) will only allow importing files. Each time you wish to update your project you will have to re-upload the file into your chart. 

Remove the Infogram integration in the external data source settings. Disconnect a live connection by clicking Disconnect above the chart's data table.  

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When it comes to using colors in charts, try to keep it simple. A good rule of thumb is the 60-30-10 principle: Use a primary color that dominates 60% of your project area, a secondary color that takes up 30% of the project to visualize important data, and a third accent color that draws particular attention to 10% of your data.

To change the colors used in your chart:

1. Click to select your chart, then expand the Color drop-down in the right sidebar.

2. Disable the Use one color option to choose a color for each variable. Click on color boxes to choose the color by using the color picker or entering a hex code.

Note: Switching to a different project theme in the right sidebar will switch all colors for all charts/objects in your project and provide a list of template-matching colors to choose from. We even offer a colorblind-friendly theme!

Pro tip: To avoid the need to change chart colors each time you want to apply your company’s brand colors, we can develop a custom project theme for your company with your corporate colors, fonts, logos, icons, etc. This way your content becomes easily scalable and reusable. This is a feature available to our Enterprise customers. 

To change the colors used in a chart's legend and axis, expand the Fonts tab in the right sidebar.

In charts containing multiple tabs, you can adjust individual tab colors: 

1. Click to select your chart, then expand the Settings: Global menu at the top of the right sidebar.

2. Select a tab.

3. Expand the Color dropdown and adjust the color. This will only change the colors for the data in the selected tab.

If you want to reset individual sheet colors and return to global settings, click the link at the bottom of the right sidebar when in individual (sheet) color mode.

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Customize charts to look just the way you want them to! Chart settings are located in the right sidebar of the editor.

After adding a chart to your project, select it once to access chart settings. Use tabs at the top to switch between the data table and settings.

Here you can add animations to your chart, as well as edit (click on hyperlinked settings to be redirected to tutorial articles) chart properties, color, axis and grid, fonts, legend, tooltips, data format, accessibility, and more.

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