How to Add, Change or Remove Error Bars in Excel

Adding error bars to your chart will display the margin of error, confidence intervals, and standard deviation. It is a powerful tool for analyzing your data and can be used on almost every data point of your chart.

This guide shows you how the process of adding, customizing or changing error bars in Excel.  

Add Error Bars in Excel

There are a couple of ways of adding an error bar to a chart in Excel.

Method 1: Using the Chart Design Tab 

1. First, left-click on your graph to select it.
2. Click on the Chart Design tab on top of your sheet. You will find various options to design your chart on the ribbon. 
3. Click on the Add Chart Element option in the top ribbon.

   

4. A drop-down menu will appear. Click on Error Bars. Next, select the type of “error bar” you wish to add, for example, Standard Error, Percentage, or Standard Deviation.

   

5. After selecting an option, you will see error bars appear on your chart to represent the errors or deviations.

Method 2: Using Chart Elements

You can also add error bars by clicking on the Chart Elements button on the right side of the chart when you click on the chart area. 

1. First, click on the graph.
2. You will see an icon with a Green Plus symbol. Left-click on this Chart Elements button.

   

3. A menu of options will appear that lists different types of chart elements such as gridlines, axes, axes titles, labels, etc.

   

4. Click on the check box next to the Error Bars option.

   

5. Alternatively, by clicking on the black arrow next to the error bars option, you will find a list of types of error bars you can choose from.

   

Customize Error Bars in Excel

This section will explain how to customize the error bars in your chart. This includes:

• Changing the visual style of the error bars. 
• Changing the visual effects applied to the error bars. 
• Changing the direction, end style, and error amount represented by the error bars. 

Changing the visual style of the error bars

When adding error bars, Excel gives you the option to change visual and aesthetic aspects such as the type of line used for the error bar, color, transparency, the width of the error bar, and the style and size of the arrows.

Follow these steps:

1. Left-click on the chart. 
2. You will see an icon with a Green Plus symbol. Click on it.

   

3. Click on the black arrow next to the Error Bars option in the list of chart elements. Next, click on More Options…

   

4. A Format Error Bars panel will appear on the right side of the sheet.

   

   Alternatively, this panel can be accessed by clicking on the 2D graph area, then going to Add Chart Element > Error Bars > More Error Bar Options.

   

5. Here, you will find the Fill and Line tab that has the options you need to change the visual style of the error bars.

   

Part 2: Changing visual effects applied to the error bars

Add a shadow or glow effect to your error bar, or soften/strengthen the edges of the error bar lines.

1. Go to the Format Error Bars panel as shown in Part 1. 
2. Left-click on the Effects tab icon (in a pentagon shape).

   

3. Under the Shadow effect options, you can change the color, transparency, angle, distance, size, and blur aspects of your desired shadow effect.

   

4. Under the Glow effect options, you can change the color, size, and transparency of your desired glow effect.

   

5. Under Soft Edges, you can change the size of the edges of your error bars.

   

Part 3: Changing direction, end style, and error amount of the error bars

This section shows you how to change the direction of your error bar (i.e., plus or minus), the end style of your error bar, and the error amount of your error bar. Follow these steps.

1. Navigate to the Format Error Bars panel as shown in Part 1. 
2. Left-click on the Error Bar Options icon (in the shape of three bar graphs next to each other).

   

3. You can change the direction of the error bars to display either positive error, negative error, or both. You can also edit the end style of the error bar and change the amount of error represented by them.

   

   You can also use the custom error amount option to specify values for positive and negative errors.

   

   

Remove Error Bars in Excel

There are two main ways to delete error bars in excel:

Method 1: Using the Chart Design Tab

We can remove an error bar from a chart by using the chart design tab.

1. First, left-click on the chart area by moving your cursor over the 2D graph. 
2. A chart design tab will appear on top of your sheet (in the ribbon) with various options to design your chart. Click on Add Chart Element.

   

3. In the drop-down menu, click on Error Bars. 
4. In the new set of error bar options, select None for the error bar type. This will delete the error bars from your chart.

   

Method 2: Using Chart Elements

1. Left-click on your graph.
2.  You will see a button with a Green Plus icon. Click on it.

   

3. In the Chart Elements menu, uncheck the box next to Error Bars. The error bars will now be removed from your chart.