Putting error bars on graphs using EXCEL 2007, 2010 and 2013

(This a bit more convoluted than in earlier versions of EXCEL but uses exactly the same strategy)

  1. Click on INSERT on menu bar and doubleclick on COLUMN in the CHARTS section at the top of the spreadsheet.

  2. Choose 2-D COLUMN CLUSTERED (leftmost chart on 1st row from the top).

  3. Doubleclick on the outputted graph. In the DATA section at the top of the spreadsheet click SELECT DATA. Note: for EXCEL 2010 double right click on the graph and choose SELECT DATA from the resulting pop-up menu.

  4. In the left window labelled LEGEND ENTRIES (SERIES) click ADD.

  5. In the SERIES NAME box type in Males; Delete all contents in the SERIES VALUES box directly beneath and click the spreadsheet icon immediately to the right of the SERIES VALUES box.

  6. Highlight cells A2 to A4 in the column representing the means (these should appear in the SERIES VALUES box). Click OK.

  7. In the left window labelled LEGEND ENTRIES (SERIES) click ADD.

  8. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for Females: in the SERIES NAME box type in Females, delete all contents in the SERIES VALUES box directly beneath and click the spreadsheet icon immediately to the right of the SERIES VALUES box.

  9. Highlight cells A5 to A7 in the column representing the means (these should appear in the SERIES VALUES box). Click OK.

  10. Click EDIT in the HORIZONTAL (CATEGORY) AXIS LABELS box.

  11. Delete any contents In the AXES LABEL RANGE box, and insert {“NE”,”SE”,”W”} and click OK.

  12. Now doubleclick on any bar representing males in the graph and choose LAYOUT in the top spreadsheet menu and in the ANALYSIS section click ERROR BARS>MORE ERROR BARS OPTIONS and choose CUSTOM and click SPECIFY VALUE. Note: In EXCEL 2013 the custom error bar option is found by clicking on the DESIGN tab and choosing ADD CHART ELEMENT on the far left of the upper tool bar.

  13. Click on the spreadsheet icon adjacent to the box under POSITIVE ERROR VALUE and highlight cells B2 to B4 in the width (standard error) column. The co-ordinates of the standard error row should appear in the POSITIVE ERROR VALUE box. Repeat for the NEGATIVE ERROR VALUE box again highlighting cells B2 to B4. Click OK and CLOSE.

  14. Repeat steps 15 and 16 for females by clicking on any bar representing females and placing cells B5 to B7 in the POSITIVE ERROR VALUE and NEGATIVE ERROR VALUE boxes.

  15. Click OK and CLOSE. You should now have a bar chart with error bars. Doubleclicking on the bars and clicking the FORMAT tab in the menu bar located at the top of the spreadsheet allows the user to change the style and colour of the bars.

A similar approach to the above works producing line plots with error bars at set points (usually corresponding to groups) on the x-axis. The line plot can then be edited to leave just error bars. If using EXCEL 2010 you can double click on a particular error bar on a particular line and choose Marker Options>Built in and choose type. An error bar centrepoint in the particular type will then appear in the middle of the error bar. This can be repeated for each error bar. If you then double click on a line and choose Line Color>no line the line disappears leaving just the error bars giving something like this. If you then also click on each error bar and choose Line Color>Solid line the error bar lines will change colour like this.