Formatting Bars in Bar and Combo Charts

You can display bars in a bar or combo chart by grouping data sets and specifying their orientation on the chart. You can also display point values in your bar or combo chart. You can modify the shapes and widths of bars and bar borders.

Use the following guidelines to specify how bars are displayed in your charts:

Vertical orientation starts the bars on the horizontal axis and displays the bars vertically.
Horizontal orientation starts the bars on the vertical axis and displays the bars horizontally.
You can display bars in three dimensions. The third dimension depth represents the pixel depth of the 3D effect or shadow.
The bar width represents the relative width of the bar as a percentage of available space. A smaller number results in more space between bars.
The bar shape represents the shape of the displayed bars.
You can apply shading (pattern and color) by data set using the Element Style tab of the Format Chart dialog box. For more information, see Table 19, Format Chart Dialog Box Tabs .

To format bars in bar and combo charts:

Open a report and create or select a bar or combo chart.
On the Chart Properties property sheet, click the Format Chart button.
Select the Bar Options tab.
Select a Type option:
- To display bars side-by-side, select Group.
- To display bars stacked vertically bottom-to-top, select Stack.
- To display the bars front-to-back, select Rows.
Select an Orientation option:
- To display the bars vertically on the horizontal axis, select Vertical.
- To display the bars horizontally on the vertical axis, select Horizontal.
To show the numerical value or data that the bar represents, select the Show Point Values check box. The value is displayed within the bar.
Click the Font button, , to set font options for the bar values.
To specify a style to be applied to the border of the bars in the chart, select Solid, Dotted, Dashed, or DotDashed from the Bar Border Style drop-down list.
To alter the width of the bars, use the slide tool in the Bar Width box.
To increase or decrease the width of the bar borders, use the slide tool in the Bar Border Width box.
Click OK.
Note:
You can define styles for the bars representing the current data set. For more information, see Defining Styles for Data Sets.