How to Create a Regular Chart in Excel (Column Chart)

Step 1: Select the Data

Step 2: Click on the ‘Insert’ tab and Select the chart to be created

Step 3: Preview Column Chart

Step 4: Right-click and Select Format Data Series

Step 5: Select “Secondary Axis” in the Plot Series options

Step 6: Preview Chart

Step 7: Select any Target Value bars, right-click, and select ‘Format Data Series

Step 8: Go to Format Data Series and Decrease or Increase the Gap Width

In the ‘Format Data Series’ pane, lower the Gap Width value, you can increase the width of the bars to make it wider than normal or can make them narrow as per your need, Here we’ve made the Gap width value higher to decrease the width of the bars

Step 9: Press the Delete key after clicking on the numbers of the secondary axis on the right side of the chart

This will give your chart a clean look. 

Output

Now your chart is ready. After deleting the secondary axis, you will get the below as the final output.

Excel is known to be a powerful tool for data visualization, comparison, storage, and management which can handle large amounts of data. We know that data can be visualized and compared using different kinds of plots and charts in Excel such as line charts, bar charts, etc. The tool is used to get insights from data using formulas and functions. It is primarily used by Accounting professionals to get insights into financial data, but it can be used by anyone for different purposes. Let’s see how to create an Actual vs Target chart using floating markers:

For demonstration, let’s use the below table values, which have actual sales and target sales for different years,