Excel: Displaying Budget Deficit of European Union Members

Today, inspired by a graph in one of our Dutch newspapers I created this one about the budget deficit of all the members of the European Union:

A lot of tricks are needed here.

Here are the data from A1:B28:

Now the data are ready.

Create a bar graph based on A1:D28.
Delete the legend.
Format the X-axis form -10 til 6 fixed.
Set Series overlap for the bars to 100%.
Select the Requirement bar.
Set fill to No fill.
Add a trendline to this bar.
Select the Label bar.
Choose Data labels -> Inside end.
Set label options to Category Name.
Plot series on Secondary axis.
Set the color to No Fill.
Format the secondary X-axis form -10 til 6 fixed.
Set the Horizontal Category Labels for Label to B2:B28.
Set the Y-axis labels to Low.
Add the columns Band1 and Band2 to the graph (they are automatically linked to the secondary axis; if not: do so)
Set the color of both bars to grey.
And transparancy to 50%.
Set the gap width to no gap.
Remove the gridlines.
Set both X-axis labels to none.
For the Deficit values choose Invert if negative and pick two different colors.
Set the gap width to 100%.
Add a chart title, background black, font color white: EU-requirement -3%
Put this right on top of the trendline.

Now the graph should look like the one I originally showed.

Hessel de Walle's Blog