Comments on: Overlapped Bar Chart – Longer Bars in Back

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 22:41:26 +0000

Your description indicated that conferences were important. What I suggested was not to plot Y1, Y2, and Y3, but rather (Y2-Y1) and (Y3-Y1). This accentuates the differences, but obscures the actual values.

By: Luis Gonzalez

Luis Gonzalez — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:03:02 +0000

Jon,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I’m not sure I understand what you are proposing. Would I still be able to see the right series values on axis Y?
Thanks again

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:16:05 +0000

Luis -

Does it make sense to treat one of the series as the baseline, subtract its value from the other two series, and plot the deviation?

By: Luis Gonzalez

Luis Gonzalez — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 13:53:18 +0000

I need a line chart to represent 3 different series, the problem is that the values of the series are very close and they overlap making it impossible to appreciate the differences even if the range is widen.

Any suggestion?

I really appreciate your help.

Thank you,

Luis G

By: Jon Peltier

Jon Peltier — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:49:01 +0000

Karan asked how to get the taller-bar-behind-shorter bar effect if there are more than two series. Essentially it's the same, but you need several extra series. Here is one way to approach it. Add some columns to the data:

The formulas in E2 through H2 are =IF(OR(B2 =IF(C2 =IF(AND(D2 =IF(AND(B2 Here is the chart, not fully overlapped: And here is the chart, with fully overlapped bars:

By: Jon Peltier Jon Peltier — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 03:22:59 +0000 Ken - You can’t interweave two series in that manner. A series can be either completely in front of or completely behind another series.