How can I centrally align a 2 D Bar Chart in Excel?

Question

I have a chart that looks like this:

xx

x*x

xxxxxx

However, I need it to be centrally aligned to form a pyramidal shape, essentially having the peak of the pyramid in the centre of the x axis

Does anyone know how I can do this?!

Answer 1

You can't really change the shape of  a specific type of chart because it is created from the data you enter and of course you can't enter it any differently because that would change the results of the chart. However, if you want pyramids why not choose that type. When you click on the chart wizard to start creating, click on the custom types tab and you will find pyramid.  But this probably is not exactly what you mean which I don't think is achievable unless you draw your graph to scale using a triangle and text boxes for the data. If you want to print it centred vertically and horizontally this is done Print Set Up, Margins and ticking the horizontal and vertical centre boxes.

It may be that you can also cheat by using an organisation chart then you get the shape and again using text boxes for your data.

Answer 2

It sounds like you charted 3,3,2,1,1,1.  

To get what you seem to want; you need to chart 1,2,3,3,2,1 or 1,2,3,2,1.  Either in five or six consecutive rows or five or six consecutive columns.  

The order of the values determines their relative positions on the chart.

Notice, in the first case, one of the 1s was changed to a 2 and, in the second case, a 1 was changed to a 2 and a 3 was eliminated in order to make the pyramid symmetrical.