I was looking at an article on forbes.com about popular college degrees for women and men. They listed 9 degrees for both women and men (on many, many pages), and this chart is just a mash-up of the data they cited, sorted to show popular degrees for women at the top.

The chart type is 100% stacked bar, and its a good example of how a bar charts can accommodate extremely long labels. The data used in the chart looks like this:

Data used to plot this chart - 1

How to make this chart

  1. Select data and insert column chart via ribbon:
  2. Choose 100% stacked bar chart under 2d bars:
  3. Chart as inserted:
  4. Select data series and increase bar width:
  5. Select each data series and set desired color.
  6. Select data series for women and reverse category:
  7. Add Data Labels:
  8. Move legend to top:
  9. Select and delete gridlines
  10. Set title as desired
  11. Final chart before resizing and adjusting font size:

Which countries have the longest life expectancy? Bar charts work well for this kind of data because (1) the bars are easy to compare and (2) there is plenty of room for labels on the vertical axis.

Here is the data used to plot this chart:

Data used to create life expectancy chart - 2

How to make this chart

  1. Hold down control key and select ranges as shown above
  2. Click the insert column icon at Insert > charts
  3. Select the first 2d option
  4. The chart as inserted
  5. Select vertical axis; reverse sort order and set interval to 1
  6. Add data Labels
  7. Select data series and set bar width
  8. Select and delete gridlines
  9. Select and delete horizontal axis
  10. Set title as desired
  11. Final chart after changes