How do you add error bars to a graph in Microsoft Excel 2010?

Answer 1

Launch Excel 2010 spreadsheet containing chart on which you want to show Error bars. For instance,say we have included a spreadsheet containing simple table defining Distance-Time relationship having Distanceand Time fields respectively

Along with the table we have also included a Scatter & Trend line graph, which made out of Distance-Time data values.

Now we want to show the Error Bars in chart. For this, select the chart area and navigate to Layout tab, from Error Bars, click Error Bars With Standard Error.

Upon click it will automatically show positive & negative and X & Y axis Error Bars in the chart.

Now from Current Selection group under drop-down options select the Error Bars axis that you want to customize. You can choose X-axis or Y-axis for showing Error Bars.

From left sidebar of the window select the suitable design and styling options for Error Bars to make them prominent in the chart. Hit Close to continue.

You will see that only the positive vertical direction in the chart, the fixed value shows the Error vertical line against the specified value.

Now we will be customizing horizontal bars that are best suited for spreadsheet. Right-click On the horizontal line in Error bars and click Format Error Bars.

Format Error Bars window containing only Horizontal Error Bars options will appear. Under Direction, as we want to show only the bars for positive values so we would go for Plus. Under Error Amount, we selected Fixed Value. If you want to to show Error Bars with percentage or from Standard Deviation perspective then select the respective options.

On left sidebar of the window select the suitable design and styling for Error Bars to make them prominent in the chart. Click Close to continue.

You can see the horizontal bars are only shown in the positive X-axis direction and taking range as specified in Fixed value.