Resizing Bar Width in Clustered Column Chart

[TarcMaylor]

I'm building a clustered column chart (photo below), and would like to resize the width of the bars in that chart if possible, but I am not having any luck finding a way to do this.  I know that other version of this has been asked and answered already (http://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/chart-column-width/m-p/17749#M5116), but the answer to those questions was "you are missing a field for your Axis", meanwhile I already have an axis value.  

Any help?  Thanks!

[atankit007ss]

1- Select the visual and go to format tab, under format tab go to X-axis

2- In X- axis, there is one option known as Layout (you can also search Layout in the search bar option under format tab)

3- In layout increase the size as per your requirement.

Hope, it resolves your query.

[-Adam-]

If the x-axis is reading from a date format:

• Double click on the x-axis in your chart to show the "Format Axis" fly-out on the right side of the window
• If it's not already expanded, go to "Axis Options" and under "Axis Type" and select "Text Axis".  This immediatly widened the columns to what I would normally expect and it allowed further manipulation with Gap Width and Overlap settings.

Double-click on the columns to bring up this fly-out to adjust Series Overlap and Gap Width:

[wbwest59]

As usual with Power BI, no true answers.  

[KiranBeethoju]

Step - 1

Select Clustered Column Chart from Visualizations, drag your data columns into visual

Step - 2

Click on your visual, goto Format and enable X-axis, 

Step - 3

In X axis settings you can see Minimum Category width and inner padding tweak them as your wish

Problem solved 😊

[jeffmjohnson330]

You have to make sure under X axis that the Type is "Categorical" and not "Continuous" otherwise it won't let you adjust the category width.

[jainbhavesh9]

cluster column chart bars is supposed to render categorical data and not contineous data. if you can catogories data and add that category field in column legend well then you can adjust spacing and width.

for example

if you have quarter on x axis and month as column legend then for each quarter you expect 3 bars in clustered column bar with some spacing and then next quarter, however clusted column chart will display 3 bars but white space for 9+1 more bars. as a quarter has only 3 months data and for rest 9 months it render 0 value which looks like white space.

a year data -> 4 quarters -> 12 months(means 12 category)

Work around to fix this -> make new field as 'month category' which includes only respective months for quarter.

a year data -> 4 quarters -> 3 months type( means 3 category)

3 months type would be ->

month 1 ->which represnt first month of a quarter -> Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct

month 2 -> which represnt second month of a quarter -> Feb, May, Aug, Nov

month 3 -> which represnt third month of a quarter -> March, June, Sep, Dec

now keeping this month type field in 'column legend' well will display 3 bars and one white space for each quarter

[jainbhavesh9]

Thanks for correct answer, finally this solved the problem. 😀

[jainbhavesh9]

my problem was to display multiple column legends with more width, I created new column with category and replaced in column legend. 

example ->converted  "Quarter(month) =  Q1 ( 1,2,3), Q2 (4,5,6), Q3 (7,8,9), Q4(10,11,12)"

to

Quarter(Month type) =  Q1 ( 1,2,3), Q2 ( 1,2,3, Q3 ( 1,2,3), Q4( 1,2,3)

[aswinrhs]

Go to Format option and type Padding. In X-axis, you will find inner padding %. Now, change the % and you can see the width of the column altered. Changing the width of a column

[Anonymous]

Also under X-axis adjusting "Minimum Category Width" helps better than reducing the padding I found.

[mp11743]

Has anyone found a better solution or workaround to this? Adjusting the inner padding or column width made very little change for me. Another chart type that can support field based target with conditional coloring on the bars (below or above target) would be fine.

[benjamin_sasin]

Trying to get this right as well. I find the parameters of X axis are not doing anything. All I get is this silly looking chart:

[v-yuezhe-msft]

@TarcMaylor,

You are able to change width of the whole chart as shown in screenshot below. However, it is not possible to resize bar width of a single bar, an idea about this issue has been submitted in this link, please vote it up.



Regards,
Lydia

[TarcMaylor]

Thanks for the reply. I was looking for any option *except* for resizing the entire chart though... I'm not looking to change the size of one of the bars, but actually all of them. There is so much wasted, blank space on that chart that it seems like it would make it easier to see the data if all of the columns could be wider. Does it make it any more possible if I'm wanting to change the width of every column and not just one of them?

[v-yuezhe-msft · Accepted solution]

@TarcMaylor,

There is no method that could be used to change width of column unless we resize the whole chart to make the column wider. There is also an idea about adjusting blank space, you can vote it up.

Regards,

[golfnut13]

I am finding that all of the suggestions, do not work for the most part.  In Excel, one can easily make each column wider and reduce the amount of white space on the graph.  Though dynamic, the visuals are very limited and very frustrating when trying to make visually appealing.  Changes and formatting should not be this complicated.  I wish I could increase the width of my columns to the size of the visual at the top of this page.

[HankTheTank]

What everyone that is asking for this wants to do is to control the use of white space around a chart _and_ the width of the bars. This is a very reasonable thing to ask because without it the charts are not balanced in the amount of space they use -- for example, a chart with only 5 bars, if displayed in a larger width area, will be centered and have an unusual amount of white space around it, yes the bars will be bigger, but I want them over to the left, not centered, and I want them much wider than they will be if I shrink the width of the whole chart.

[jj5786]

"No Method to change the width of the bar chart"  This is NOT a solution.

I too am in the same situation - would like to increase the width of the bar charts since there is so much white space.

Jose

[IonelaP]

Source: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_excel-mso_mac-mso_mac2011/how-do-you-cha...

Mike Middleton replied on May 13, 2012

A:

The usual way to change the width of the vertical bars in a Column chart type is to change the gap width (in all versions of Excel, Windows and Mac).

Select the data series by clicking on one of the bars (just to be sure the data series is selected). 

Right-click or control-click, and choose Format Data Series from the context menu. 

In the Format Data Series dialog box, select Options. 

Then change the Gap width.

For wider bars, make the gap width smaller. 

For narrower bars, make the gap width larger.

-  Mike Middleton, www.TreePlan.com

[IonelaP]

Source: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_excel-mso_mac-mso_mac2011/how-do-you-cha...

 Mike Middleton replied on May 13, 2012

A:

The usual way to change the width of the vertical bars in a Column chart type is to change the gap width (in all versions of Excel, Windows and Mac).

Select the data series by clicking on one of the bars (just to be sure the data series is selected). 

Right-click or control-click, and choose Format Data Series from the context menu. 

In the Format Data Series dialog box, select Options. 

Then change the Gap width.

For wider bars, make the gap width smaller. 

For narrower bars, make the gap width larger.

-  Mike Middleton, www.TreePlan.com