Data bars

In this section, we'll look at data bars. Note that you can either create a new rule as shown here or edit the data bars inserted using the one-click option explained here.

Refer to the Create Rule section to get started. Once the rule is created and you can see the Conditional Formatting side panel, follow the steps below.

Select 'Data bars' in the Color scale for dropdown. Format by should be set to 'Color Scale'.

Rendering data bars

We've already covered some of the options in the Color scales section. Let's look at the customization options specific to data bars.

1. Hide value

Check the Hide value checkbox to see only the data bars - the values are hidden.

2. Min/max

By default, the data bars are applied to all the values (values and totals if selected in the row hierarchy levels). If you only want to use data bars for a particular range of values, you can enter a minimum and maximum value as shown. Data bars are enabled only for values between 8m and 20m in this case.

Data bars for a min-max range

3. Alignment

Data bars can be aligned left or right using the Alignment field. Right alignment is shown in this example.

Alignment

4. Data bars for positive and negative values

When there are positive and negative values in the column for which you want to use data bars, the options differ as shown. You can choose to hide the values and select colors for positive and negative values.

Data bars for positive and negative values