How to Create a Stacked Bar Chart

What is a Stacked Bar Chart

Stacked Bar Charts pile vertical columns or horizontal bars on top of each other.

There are several kinds of stacked bars – only first five types are described here – as it follows:

1. Single Stacked Bar – one single-series pile with stacked columns or bars.
2. Stacked Bars – simple vertical columns or horizontal bars stacked on top of each other.
3. Full Stacked Bars – with all stacks and bar segment normalized at 100% in height.
4. Mosaic Chart – particular Full Stacked Bar chart with no gaps between the bars.
5. Grouped Stacked Bars – Stacked Bars mixed side-by-side with regular Bars, in groups.
6. Skyscraper Bars – alternative presentation layout, with wider bars at the bottom of each stack.
7. Butterfly Chart (or Population Pyramid) – mixes one Bar with another Bar mirrored on the other side of the axis.
8. Centered Stacked Bars – Stacked Bars with both positive and negative values.
9. Stacked Range Bars – they look like Stacked Bars with piles starting at different values instead of the base axis.
10. Marimekko Chart – Full Stacked Bar chart with no gaps between bars and width normalized as well at 100% of the total width.
11. Stacked Radial Columns – circular view of the twisted plot of a vertical Column Chart.
12. Stacked Radial Bars – circular view of the twisted plot of a horizontal Bar Chart.

Steps to Create a Stacked Bar Chart

Start Visual Xtractor or Data Xtractor. Connect to a database. Create or design a SQL query. Run the query and check the results.

1. Display and enable the Chart query builder.
2. Select one or more numeric columns as Stacked Charts – Stacked Bar.
3. Mix eventually with regular Bar selections, for Grouped Stacked Bars.
4. Show either horizontal bars or vertical columns.
5. Select an eventual Label, for legend items and axis labels.

Single-Series Stacked Bar Chart

One single Stacked Bar selection will render a chart with one single pile of columns or bars for each value.

Multi-Series Stacked Bar Chart

The multi-series chart below combines three numeric data columns into simple Stacked Columns, using three Stacked Bar chart selections.

Customize your Stacked Bar Chart

1. Display as a Full Stacked Bar chart.
2. Remove gaps between bars and start X from zero, to appear as a Mosaic Chart.
3. Select a different drawing style (like Light to Dark).
4. Show percentage values as data labels, inside each bar.
5. Hide the Y axis labels.
6. Show the 3D view.
7. You may continue and switch from vertical columns to horizontal bars.
8. Show as lollipops.

Conclusion

• Creating Stacked Bar Charts in Data Xtractor or Visual Xtractor is fast and simple: set one or more numeric columns as Stacked Bar, instead of Bar, with one optional Label.
• Switch between vertical columns and horizontal bars.
• Show any Full Stacked Bar chart as a Mosaic Chart, with no gaps between.
• Mix Stacked Bars with side-by-side regular Bars, for a Grouped Stacked Bar chart.
• Show all values of a single-series Stacked Bar as piled columns or bars.
• All builtin powerful features of these chart type are common to most other charts: filtering series through the legend items, interactivity, monochrome or grayscale colors, rich axis and data label selections etc.
• Switch to another builtin chart theme, or customize your own, for any possible color or other styles.