Top 10 ADVANCED Excel Charts and Graphs (Free Templates Download)

Last Updated: November 13, 2023
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- Written by Puneet

Charts are one of the most important parts of Microsoft Excel. It helps us to present our data understandably. In Excel, we have different kinds of charts and graphs to present our data in different ways.

Even there are a lot of advanced charts and graphs which we can create in Excel by making small amendments to default charts. Now the bad news is, most of the Excel users don’t explore charting techniques much. But you can learn to create all those charts with a little extra effort.

The benefit of using advanced charts in Excel is they are focused on a specific kind of data and make it more understandable. Today in this post, I have a list of the Top 10 Advanced Excel Charts and Graphs, just for you.

And these charts can help you to become a charting Expert and you can become a charting sensation in your office overnight and that’s why it’s a part of our Advanced Excel Skills list.

Note: For each chart, there’s a detailed step-by-step tutorial that you see and learn to create it and you can also download all the templates from here to learn more

What is an Advanced Excel Chart or Graph?

An Advanced Excel Chart or a Graph is a chart that has a specific use or presents data in a specific way for use. In Excel, an advanced chart can be created by using the basic charts which are already there in Excel, can be done from scratch, or using pre-made templates and add-ins.

10 Advanced Excel Charts and Graphs

Below is the list of top advanced charts and graphs which are covered in this guide.

1. Step Chart

A step chart is an extended version of a line chart. It’s perfect to use when you want to show the changes that happened at irregular intervals. Unlike the line chart, it doesn’t connect data points using a short-distance line. It uses vertical and horizontal lines to connect the data points.

Step Chart’s Benefits

  1. It helps to show the exact time of change.
  2. Gives the real trend of the data throughout the period.
  3. In a line chart, it’s not possible to show the constant period, but in the step chart, you can present this.
  4. Shows you the actual numbers of the changes that happened in a period.

2. Milestone Chart

A milestone chart is also known as a timeline chart. It’s one of the favorite charts of project managers and helps them to track their project’s progress simply. It’s just like a time in which each stage of the project is captured with the date of completion.

Milestones are tools used in project management to mark specific points along a project timeline. These points may signal anchors such as a project start and end date, a need for external review or input and budget checks, among others. – Wikipedia

advanced-excel-charts-milestone

Milestone Chart’s Benefits

  1. It’s simple to create and easily understandable.
  2. You have all the important information in a single chart.

3. Waffle Chart

A waffle chart is more likely a square pie chart. It’s a bunch of 100 small squares where one square represents 1% of the total value. I’m sure you have seen it in dashboards and news article graphics. And, to create it we need to use conditional formatting.

Waffle Chart’s Benefits

  1. Best for single-point target vs. achievement.
  2. Easy to create and simple to understand by the user.

4. Tornado Chart

When it comes to showing the comparison of different things with each other tornado chart can be useful for you. It looks like a real tornado where large items are on the top and lowest at the bottom. And, each item has an opposite item for comparison.

Tornado Chart’s Benefits

  1. It can easily compare items for two different time periods.
  2. Also, figure out the top and bottom items.

5. Gantt Chart

The Gantt chart is one of the most useful charts for project managers. It can help us to track the project’s progress. Unlike a milestone chart, a Gantt chart can track completion days, delayed days, days pending, totals days, etc. In short, it’s a complete chart to track your projects with all the important details which everyone requires.

Gantt Chart’s Benefits

  1. It’s a complete chart with all the details to track a project.
  2. It makes it easy to take a decision and we can review our project plan regularly in order to locate conflicts or other problems.

6. Bullet Chart

A bullet chart is just like a column chart but instead of multiple columns here we have only one. It can help us to track a single-point target vs. achievement. There are three major components of a bullet chart:

  1. A target marker to represent the target.
  2. An achievement bar to represent the actual value.
  3. A comparison range for the color theme.
advanced-excel-charts-bullet

Bullet Chart’s Benefits

  1. Best chart to track a single-point target vs. achievement.
  2. It serves as a replacement for dashboard gauges and meters.

7. Thermometer Chart

A thermometer chart is another useful chart to track a single-point target vs. achievement and can help us to present our data understandably. It looks like a thermometer where the entire chart presents the target and the filled part is the achievement. The filled part goes up as the achievement increase.

Thermometer Chart’s Benefits

  1. It’s simple to understand and easy to create.
  2. It’s a perfect chart to use in dashboards.

8. Speed-o-Meter

It’s the kind of thing which you can find in your day-to-day life [Just look at the SPEEDOMETER in your car]. It’s also known as a Gauge chart.

Speed-o-Meter’s Benefits

  1. It can help you to present single point data in your dashboard and KPIs.
  2. It’s easy to create and simple to understand for users.

9. Population Pyramid

A population chart is a two-sided bar chart that helps us to compare the population of different age groups of genders.

Population Pyramid’s Benefits

  1. While comparing two items you can easily understand which group is growing.
  2. We can also use it to compare items for two different time periods.

10. Pictograph

A pictograph is not a separate kind of chart. By creating a pictograph we can use an image in a chart to make it more presentable. Just like we have used an icon in the below chart to present the number of employees in a company in different age groups.

advanced excel charts pictograph

Pictograph’s Benefits

  1. Using a picture in a chart makes it more meaningful.
  2. It helps us to take our charting skills to a whole next level.

Conclusion

Advanced charting techniques are one of those things which differentiate Experts from novice Excel users.

As I said using advanced Excel charts makes your data more focused and easily understandable. You can also use them in your sales reports to make them easily understandable.

I hope the list of charts which I have shared with you will help you to get better at charting but now you have to tell me one thing.

Do you have another chart that you use frequently in your work?

Share with me in the comment section, I’d love to hear from you, and please don’t forget to share this list with your friends. I’m sure they will appreciate it.

You Must Check Out These

Interactive Charts in Excel | Add a Vertical Line in a Chart in Excel | Add a Horizontal Line in a Chart in Excel | Dynamic Chart Range in Excel | Dynamic Chart Title in Excel | Copy Chart Formatting to Another Excel Chart | Add Secondary Axis in Excel Charts

19 thoughts on “Top 10 ADVANCED Excel Charts and Graphs (Free Templates Download)”

  1. This is a great post! I’ve been looking for some good charts and graphs to use in my work and this is a great resource.

    Reply
  2. Top 10 clients position wants to display on chart for 3 months (Month wise position based on revenue). How to do

    Reply
  3. Need help please.

    For my speedometer Series of 40, 40, 20 = a total of 100
    Series labels starts at 50% (as 0% mark at half the circle) with an increment of 5% up to 100% with the scale amount of 9-10s, 1-9, 1-1.

    The needle formula is
    Needle Amounts
    Pointer 50.0% – F3
    Thickness 0.015 – F4
    Total 152% =203%-SUM(F3:F4)

    My need is pointing right in the middle between 70 & 75 but it should be at the 50% (0%) line. What am I doing wrong?

    Reply
  4. I tried this chart which look nice. I have a problem while labeling 2nd chart 10,20,30……
    While i am selecting the category name of 2nd chart the labeling is showing 1st chart labels. Can you please advice

    Reply
  5. Dear Puneet

    Although I work as Manager in Telecom, your tips were really nice. It helped me to catch those jokers in MIS

    Reply
  6. Hi Puneet

    Your Excel tips are excellent. Which type of Chart is suitable to show student’s progress termwise.
    How can I use speedometer chart in my teaching profession. I mean what could be possible areas to use speedometer chart.

    Thanks

    Reply
  7. Greetings, Puneet. I have a recommendation for the Gantt chart. Instead of the Conditional Formatting changing the entire cell fill color when it fires, do this:
    In the upper left-most cell of the chart grid, enter five lower-cased g’s. ggggg
    Set the cell font to Webdings
    Set the font size to 8
    Set the font color to something dark
    Set the text alignment to center and middle
    Do a Merge and Center to that single cell only to force the characters to each side of the cell
    You should see what looks like a bar going horizontally across the middle of the cell
    Now, give that cell a Custom Format of ;;; The bar will disappear from view
    Use the fill handle to fill the rest of your grid with that cell’s formatting and contents
    While it is all still highlighted, go to Conditional Formatting and simply set it up so that when it fires (the date in the top row is in the range of your start and end dates) all that will happen is the cell’s font formatting will be set to General. No color changes or other formatting is needed.
    Whenever a cell that is in the same column as a date that is in the range of your start and end dates for that row will allow the bar to be seen.
    As always, thank you for your excellent site and I look forward to many more tips and tutorials.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/45cd15bf80d75de3f65670af0ee0e1295ad5c96ba25fab3386d0e16d6218102d.png

    Reply

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