Bar

Bar charts compare values across discrete categories. Use them when the magnitude of individual values matters and direct comparison between categories is the goal.

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Variants

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Basic

One dimension and one measure with no break-down. Each category gets a single bar.

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Grouped

Break the measure down by a dimension and set its placement to Side by side: each value gets its own bar within the category’s band. Best for comparing absolute values across several series at each category.

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Stacked

Break the measure down and leave its placement at Stacked: the values stack inside each bar. Use when you want to show both individual contributions and the total at a glance.

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Stacked to 100%

Set the placement to Stacked to 100% and every bar is stretched to the full height, showing each value as a proportion of the category’s total. Use when relative distribution matters more than absolute values.

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Horizontal

All three vertical variants are also available horizontally — flip the chart with the orientation switch in the Dimension section of the Fields tab. Horizontal bars work well for long category labels, many categories, or when a left-to-right reading direction feels more natural.

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Composite (bar + line)

Add a second measure from the Measure actions menu, set its mark to Line, and assign it to the right axis. This gives a dual-axis chart — useful for overlaying a rate on top of volume data, such as order count as bars and revenue per order as a line. The chart type reads Composite once the marks differ.

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Placement

How a broken-down measure’s values sit relative to each other is set by the placement control on that measure’s Break down by row in the Fields tab: Each measure is placed independently, so one can stack while another sits side by side. Two bar measures on the same axis are already drawn side by side within each band, one per measure, so the side-by-side placement is unavailable there. See Fields for the full reference.

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Data labels

A bar is labeled with its total at the end of the bar. Turn on Show data labels in the Data labels section of the Style tab, then configure:

• Data label position — inside or outside the bar end
• Label format — number, percentage, currency, or date
• Font size — size of the label text

See Data labels for the full reference.

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Axis behavior

Bar charts use an ordinal dimension axis — each bar is labeled independently, the axis is not time-aware, and categories not present in the result set are not plotted. With time fields, bars are ordered ascending automatically. For other data types, order follows the results table sort. Tooltips on stacked bars are scoped to the segment under the cursor, not the full stack total.