Are you tearing your hair out trying to figure out how to create a bar-line chart (i.e. a combination of a bar chart and a line chart) in Microsoft Word? Look no further, we’ve got step-by-step instructions for you in this post, as well as an accompanying video guide.
Note: This guide was created using Microsoft Word 2010. If you are looking for a guide that uses a more modern version of Word, check out this article instead.
How do we create a bar and line chart?
- To begin, create a bar chart in your Word document by going to the Insert panel, then clicking on the Chart icon. This will open a pop-up window where you can select the chart you want to insert.
- Bar charts are categorised under the Column tab in this pop-up. Select the first chart in the Column tab, then click OK to create the chart.
- A bar chart should appear on your Word document, alongside a Microsoft Excel window containing the data for the chart. Each horizontal category of your chart should be partitioned into 3 “series”. We will be removing Series 3, and formatting Series 2 so that it displays as a line (instead of a bar). Remember to also resize your data range to exclude Series 3, so you don’t have a empty space in your chart.
- Go to the Word document. Right-click on one of the Series 2 bars, and on the context menu that appears, select Change Series Chart Type. This should bring up a pop-up similar to the one seen when first creating the bar graph.
- On the ensuing pop-up, select one of the line graphs, then click OK.
- You should now have a bar graph from Series 1, and a line graph from Series 2, which come together to form a bar and line graph.
Video guide
Having trouble with the instructions above? Here’s a video guide to help you along.
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