Step Chart in Excel

Step charts are useful to show trends over time. They are superior to standard line charts when representing variables that change in jumps. Think of central bank lending rates, mortgage rates and prices of items just to name a few.

Unfortunately, Excel charting library doesn't include native capabilities to produce step charts. Users are either obliged to resort to VBA or to take the time consuming task of following a long list of steps to create one.

So here I'm offering you an Excel template that takes a data set as an input and creates a step chart, a bar chart (including the famous Edward Tufte's white gridlines over bar charts), the area step chart, the jump line chart or the area jump chart. You will also get a PowerPoint template for the same graph. The Excel model has a summary worksheet (named PowerPoint) that organizes the data in a way compatible with the data input required by the PowerPoint template.

The Excel model has the following capabilities:

- Show/hide the vertical bars.
- Show/hide the top line.
- Show/hide the vertical lines.
- Show/hide the minor tick marks.
- Show/hide the horizontal gridlines.
- Adjust the vertical scale settings (tick mark spacing and number formatting).
- Adjust the size of the tick marks on the horizontal axis.
- User-friendly interface to adjust the above settings.
- Data entered into Excel Table—hence the chart and formulas update automatically when the datasource expands or shrinks.
- The size of the data matrix is only limited by Excel's charting and calculating capabilities.
- Fully customizable chart using standard Excel functionality.
- Unlocked workbook/worksheets with ability to expand template to suit your needs.

System requirements

The template relies heavily on Excel's Dynamic Arrays capabilities, only available to Microsoft 365 subscribers.

What's the refund policy?

If what you see is not what you expected, just reply to the download email within 30 days, and you'll get a full refund. No questions asked.