Comparison Charts highlight the differences, similarities, and relationships between two or more quantities based on certain metrics.
How to make a comparison chart in Google Sheets? You may use two options either you can go with default charts available in Google Sheets or you can use the add-on to use a third-party library. Keep reading this blog you will find awesome visualizations which you should not ignore while choosing comparison charts in Google Sheets.
A comparison chart in Google Sheets is a visual representation that allows for the side-by-side evaluation of different data sets, attributes, or variables. It enables users to analyze and contrast information efficiently by organizing it into rows and columns. Typically, comparison charts in Google Sheets utilize different graphical elements such as bar graphs, pie charts, or tables to showcase similarities, differences, trends, or patterns among the data being compared. These charts serve as valuable tools for decision-making, trend analysis, performance assessment, and highlighting key insights within a dataset. Through easy customization and manipulation of data, users can create dynamic and illustrative comparison charts in Google Sheets to aid in their analysis and presentations.
Comparison charts in Google Sheets are very easy to build if you pick the right tool and approach. In the following video, we will teach you how to create Comparison charts in Google Sheets without coding in a few clicks.
Later in the blog, we also have a complete step-by-step guide to create 5 different comparison graphs which you can use as per your need, so stay with us.
Google Sheets offers numerous advantages:
Accessibility and versatility: Access your charts from any device with internet access and collaborate in real-time.
Integration with other tools: Seamlessly integrate with other Google Workspace apps and third-party tools for enhanced functionality.
To access Comparison Chart, you need to install ChartExpo, a cloud-hosted add-on. Remember, you won’t be installing anything on your device.
Suppose you own a restaurant and it is famous in the city. You have some benchmark to analyze your staff performance so that you can evaluate later how they are going play role in the reputation of the restaurant. For this purpose, you prepare the data.
Years | Staff | Performance Score |
2018 | Reception | 48 |
2018 | Waiter | 86 |
2018 | Customer Experience | 62 |
2018 | Professionalism | 64 |
2018 | Valet parking | 56 |
2018 | Behaviour | 48 |
2018 | Poor Service | 93 |
2018 | Cleaning | 60 |
2018 | Availability | 39 |
2018 | Booking | 51 |
2018 | Cook | 78 |
2018 | Management | 63 |
2018 | Time | 41 |
2019 | Reception | 79 |
2019 | Waiter | 75 |
2019 | Customer Experience | 92 |
2019 | Professionalism | 41 |
2019 | Valet parking | 40 |
2019 | Behaviour | 84 |
2019 | Poor Service | 71 |
2019 | Cleaning | 69 |
2019 | Availability | 89 |
2019 | Booking | 65 |
2019 | Cook | 39 |
2019 | Management | 64 |
2019 | Time | 37 |
2020 | Reception | 40 |
2020 | Waiter | 60 |
2020 | Customer Experience | 75 |
2020 | Professionalism | 92 |
2020 | Valet parking | 91 |
2020 | Behaviour | 58 |
2020 | Poor Service | 42 |
2020 | Cleaning | 79 |
2020 | Availability | 83 |
2020 | Booking | 90 |
2020 | Cook | 74 |
2020 | Management | 62 |
2020 | Time | 85 |
You can fill the sheet with your data and select the desired visualization for this.
Comparison Bar Chart is the best option here to visualize this data side by side. You can find this chart under the category of Comparative Analysis Charts. For creating this chart you need 2 dimensions and 1 metric.
To draw this chart you need two dimensions and one measure. Once you have selected these then
you can click on Create Chart button to view your data in a visualized form.
Based on the analysis, it can be judged that poor services was high in 2018 but in 2019 there came some improvement on this segment and again in 2021 this poor service was improved to satisfaction level as compared to other segments.
Now, we will discuss how can you create 20 different comparison charts in Google Sheets by using ChartExpo. You can have an easy and understandable guide on how effortless is to create charts within a few clicks. Let’s have a look at comparison charts by ChartExpo in Google Sheets. If you do not have the ChartExpo add-on installed in Google Sheets yet, you can do it from here.
in a minute to create and customize 20 types of comparison charts in a few clicks without any coding.
Let’s suppose you have a sales data of a mobile store. The data is of the current month and the previous month. Proper comparison visualization is required to see how sales performance is going. Below is the sample data:
Company | Previous Sale | Current Sale |
Samsung | 50 | 86 |
Apple | 64 | 97 |
Huawei | 52 | 78 |
LG | 81 | 87 |
Lenovo | 65 | 79 |
Motorola | 72 | 85 |
HTC | 59 | 89 |
Sony | 84 | 73 |
In Google Sheets, you can create the respective columns and fill the data in the cells accordingly.
You can click on PPC charts to find the Progress to chart under this category. You need 2 metrics and 1 dimension for this chart.
Now you can select the sheet. Then select 2 metrics and one dimension as per the requirement of this chart. After selecting them you can click on Create Chart to view the visualization.
How to use the properties of the charts?
All the visualizations provided by ChartExpo, give you support to change the properties according to your need.
Below are few points which can help you to understand how you can change the properties and same applies almost on all the charts.
Let’s explore how can you change some properties? You can find individual section properties when you will click on “Edit chart” button.
As soon as you will click on “Edit chart” button. You will find edit icons in different sections on the chart.
For example, you want to put dollar ($) sign with the data on bar and on the right scale. As this data is related to sale so putting this prefix before numbers will add more ease in reading this chart.
As edit icon is appearing on the bar. You can click on it to see the property details.
There will be different section available in this property detail window. You will find “Prefix” property under the “Right Bar Inner Label” section. You can fill this property box with $ sign and then click on “Apply All” button. You will notice a change on values on the bar as they started appearing with dollar sign now.
Now, let’s add $ on the right scale. Near the end of the scale you will find edit icon,
Click on highlighted edit icon to see the right scale related properties. You will find the same “Prefix” property here in section “Axis Label”.
Same you can do with left scale on chart to implement the prefix property.
You can change the font coming in the chart so that you can make them prominent where required.
Such properties are available under “Font Style” section. Let’s try to change the font size of the left scale labels. Click on edit icon on left scale to view the properties.
Once the “Apply All” button is clicked you will find a font size change in your left side of the chart text.
This chart is not appealing good without having any title or header. Let’s add title for this chart so that it can become more meaningful.
You will find title related property edit icon button on top center of the chart.
Under the section of “Text” you can add title. If you are interested to more lines you can add them too. Let’s add “Mobile Sales Performance” as line1.
Once clicked on “Save”, you will have chart below with title on top.
Please note that every chart has its own properties, but the way of doing changes in the chart properties is same as we discussed for this Progress Chart.
As per the visualization it is clear that how different brands of mobile sale went very well except the Sony brand. This definitely need some attention why the sale remained down this month.
Suppose you want to show your sales and growth data at the same time. For this double bar chart is best suited for such requirement. Because it can show two different bars. One bar shows the numerical values and second is showing percentage values side by side.
Years | Sales | Growth |
2013 | 7000 | 4.2 |
2014 | 7606 | 7.6 |
2015 | 7895 | 3.8 |
2016 | 8242 | 4.4 |
2017 | 8327 | 0.7 |
2018 | 8768 | 5.3 |
2019 | 9337 | 6.5 |
2020 | 9589 | 2.7 |
Once you have the data you can put it in Google Sheets and then look for this visualization to draw.
You can find Double Bar Graph under the category of Comparative Analysis Charts. This chart needs 2 metrics and 1 dimension.
Now you will select your desired sheet and then will select 2 available metrics one is numerical value and second is percentage. For this chart you need one dimension to draw. Once these are selected now you can click on Create Chart button to view the visualization.
You can infer that 2014 was the year in which growth remained maximum and 2020 was the year with best sales so far.
If you are a car lover you will love this good comparison of famous car brands’ sale of Mercedes and BMW over the past years.
Years | Mercedes | BMW |
2014 | 0.7 | 1.6 |
2015 | 0.9 | 1.8 |
2016 | 1.8 | 1.9 |
2017 | 1.92 | 1.97 |
2018 | 2.1 | 2 |
2019 | 2.29 | 2.1 |
2020 | 2.32 | 2.11 |
Once the data is ready in Google Sheets, you can go to shortlist your visualization for this chart.
Grouped Bar chart is good way to present your data. You can find this visualization under the category of PPC Charts. For this chart you only need 1 dimension but you can have multiple metrics.
Once dimensions and metrics are selected, you can click on Create Chart button to draw this chart.
With this visualization, everyone can clearly see that Mercedes sales have growing slowly but surely. Look how beautifully Grouped Bar Chart have created bars next to each other. So, the reader easily understand what is going on?
Suppose you got the data of stores in different cities of USA. You want to track which store is giving most of the profit.
Cities | Current Profit | Previous Profit |
Los Angeles | 4723 | 4510 |
Chicago | 9550 | 8545 |
Houston | 3908 | 2399 |
Phoenix | 7023 | 6533 |
Philadelphia | 13631 | 12485 |
San Antonio | 7125 | 6163 |
San Diego | 11934 | 10485 |
Dallas | 14444 | 13580 |
San Jose | 7653 | 6470 |
Austin | 13531 | 12267 |
As there are many options for visualization why not to try Pareto Chart this time? This will help you to find out which of the stores giving maximum results. Once your data is ready in Google Sheets you can go for this visualization.
You can find Pareto Bar Chart under the category of PPC Charts. 2 metrics and 1 dimension are prerequisites for this chart.
Now you can select you relevant sheet and then select the required metrics as Current Profit, Previous Profit and then click on Add new dimension as City and finally click on Create Chart button.
You can see that Dallas, Philadelphia, Austin, San Diego, Chicago, San Jose and San Antonio are the cities which are giving him 80% of profits and also they have improved sales as compared to their previous profits. Below grey lines are those cities which are 20% profits. You need to pay more attention towards these cities store.
Suppose you have sales revenue data and you want to visualize the comparison of current and target revenue.
Market | Current Sales Revenue | Target Sales Revenue |
West | 250 | 300 |
You have to put all the data in Google Sheets to visualize it.
A Gauge Chart is the best option for such data. You can easily find it under the category of General Analysis Charts. 1 metric and 2 dimensions are required for this chart.
Once relevant sheet, dimension and metrics are selected then click on Create Chart button to make a meaningful visualization out of this data.
By looking on this chart, you can judge that the target sales revenue was $300M and current sales revenue is $250M, which is very good.
Create a comparison chart in Google Sheets is an easy task with ChartExpo that can help you create this chart within a few clicks.
Yes, Google Sheets supports live data connections, enabling real-time updates in your charts.
The limit depends on the type of chart and the complexity of data. Google Sheets allows multiple variables for most chart types.
Yes, you can export charts as image files or embed them in documents or presentations.
The importance of data visualization cannot be over-emphasized.
For business people, and marketers all over the world.
It reduces your stress levels, gives you more time, and gets you exponentially better results.
And for most of us, the data to be analyzed is truly just for comparison.
Between items, products, countries, companies, services, and so much more.
In Google Sheets, we can organize data and visualize it.
However, with the complex and huge data that we have to deal with each day, the solution is to use a visualization tool.
How to Make a Comparison Chart in Google Sheets? For many, ChartExpo for Google Sheets has proven to be excellent for visuals.
And this piece has shown you the step-by-step way to draw awesome visuals for data using ChartExpo.
It has also shown you how to pick your visualization types and the things that matter in data visualization.
It’s everything you need to make data analysis a fun part of your life.
What can stop you now?
All you need to do is to ‘get cracking’!
We will help your ad reach the right person, at the right time
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