Re-Order Data Series In An Excel 2013 Chart

November 3, 2015 by Barbara

When you create a chart in Excel, you may find that you need to change the order of the way the data series is displayed in your chart. For examaple you may have a Minim, Maximum and Average Sales price in your chart data which you want to display in the order Average, Maximum then minimum. You could change the order of the data in your data source in your work sheet range which would automatically change the order of the chart data display.

If you do not want to amend your source data, you can manually change the series order by customising the Excel chart.

Let’s start with some data.

I have already calculated my Minimum, Maximum and Average value sales for my products, which I now just need to create a chart with.

Select the data set
Insert Tab
In the Charts Group

Click on the Insert Column Chart ( I want to insert a Column Chart)
Your Chart will be created with the default data series sequence specified in your data source

We want to change the data series sequence so the Average sales data in in the middle of our data seried, with Minimum on the left and Maximum on the right.

Click on to the Chart to make it active
The Chart Tools Options Tab will be visible
In the Data Group Select – Select Data

In the list of data series at the left of the dialog box, click once on the one you want to move.
Use the Up Arrow and Down Arrow buttons to reposition the selected data series.
When finished, click OK.

In this example I have moved the Average Data Series to the middle of the selection.