Do you want to increase the default bar size in your Power BI charts?

Power BI is a powerful data visualization tool that allows you to create interactive and compelling reports and dashboards. One of the most common types of visualizations in Power BI is the bar chart, which is great for comparing values across different categories or periods.

However, depending on the size of your chart and the number of categories or values you’re displaying, the default bar size in Power BI may be too small to effectively communicate your message.

Fortunately, increasing the size of bars in Power BI is a straightforward process that can help you make your charts more impactful and easier to read.

In this article, you will learn the steps to increase the bar size in Power BI, using both built-in formatting options. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced Power BI user, this guide will help you create more effective and engaging bar charts.

Increase the Bar Size for Native Bar and Column Chart in Power BI

Power BI has different variations of bar and column charts that you can use to present your data. The good thing about these charts is that, for the most part, they have almost similar format options. Therefore, this method of increasing the bar size of a chart in Power BI will work irrespective of the type of bar or column chart you’re using.

This image shows the Sales distribution of different product categories over 3 years – 2007, 2008, and 2009 – using a clustered bar chart. If you want to increase the size of the bars in the chart, you can follow these steps.

1. In the Visualizations pane, click on Format your visual tab. Select the Bars option.

The Bars menu has two options, Colors and Spacing. The Colors setting allows you to change the bar colour for each category and the Spacing setting allows you to change the size of the bars. Therefore, you will click on the Spacing option.

2. In the Spacing dropdown, you have two options for increasing the bar sizes – Inner padding and Minimum category width.

The Inner padding option increases the sizes of the bars by reducing the white spaces between the categories.

When set to zero, it removes the white spaces between the categories and marginally increases the bar sizes.

Therefore, the higher the number, the more white spaces exist between each category and the smaller the bars.

When the inner padding is set to the highest level, it creates smaller bars and more white space.

Here you can see the smaller bars and lots of white spaces between the categories.

You can set the Inner padding to a value of 10 to increase bar sizes while also keeping a visible white space between the categories.

To demonstrate how the Minimum category width works, the visual has been rearranged so that the years are in the Legend well and the product categories are on the Y-axis.

The Minimum category width setting increases bar sizes by basically zooming into the visual. The values of the setting range between 20 (min) and 180 (max).

After increasing the Minimum category width value to 70px, the number of categories on display in the visual reduces from the initial eight to five because they’re now too big to fit into the display canvass.

When you use the Minimum category width setting, you will most likely have to increase the size of the entire visual because the setting makes the entire visual bigger, not just the bars.

Using the Inner Padding and Minimum Category Width Setting for Column Charts

The location of the Inner padding and Minimum category width setting is the same for both bar and column charts. However, they’re under different labels.

In a bar chart, you’ll find the setting under the Bar label title as displayed earlier.

But since column charts don’t use bars, you will find the Inner padding and Minimum category width setting under the Columns label.

With this, you can easily switch between a column and a bar chart while maintaining the customized setting.

Increase the Bar Size for Imported Bar Chart in Power BI

If the native Power BI bar chart doesn’t give you enough flexibility to increase the bar size as you want, you can use an imported bar chart.

To import visuals, click on the ellipsis in the visualizations pane and select Get more visuals. This will take you to the Power BI Visuals window.

Search for a Horizontal bar chart and click on Add.

The newly added visual will be identified with this icon. Now you can use it to visualize your data.

When you create the visual usual the imported Horizontal bar chart, you can increase the bar size by going to the Bar Height setting under the Visual tab.

To achieve your desired size, you can adjust the Bar Height value. Similar to the Minimum bar width setting, expanding the visual canvas may be necessary to accommodate the larger bar sizes.

Conclusions

Increasing the bar height in Power BI is a simple process that can help you present your data more effectively.

You can adjust the bar height of a native Power BI graph by increasing the value of the inner padding or minimum bar width or a combination of both.

If you’re using an imported bar chart, you can adjust the bar height value to create larger bars that highlight important information and make your charts easier to read.

Remember to expand the visual canvas if necessary, and to consider the overall visual balance of your chart. With these tips in mind, you can create polished and informative charts that showcase your data in the best possible way.