Author: Oscar Cronquist Article last updated on October 19, 2018

Enable error bars when you want to show, for example, standard deviations in a chart, Excel lets you insert error bars to the following charts:

  • 2-D area chart
  • Bar chart
  • Column chart
  • Line chart
  • x y scatter chart
  • Bubble chart

Scatter and bubble charts let you show error bars for both x and y values.

How to enable

  1. Select chart.
  2. Press with mouse on "plus" sign next to chart.
  3. Press with mouse on checkbox "Error Bars" to enable it.
  4. The arrow next to the "Error Bars" checkbox lets you choose between 3 different error bars:
    • Standard error
    • Percentage
    • Standard deviation
    • More Options...

How to customize error bars

  1. Double-press with left mouse button on one of the error bars to open the task pane.
  2. Press with left mouse button on "Error bars options" tab to display the settings above.

Excel lets you change the direction of the error bar, the end style and the error amount.

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