You can create many types of charts in MS Excel, from simple columns and lines to advanced visuals like histograms and tree maps.

Main built‑in chart types

Here are the core categories you’ll see under Insert → Charts:

  1. Column charts
    • Vertical bars, great for comparing categories (e.g., sales by product or region).
 * Variants: clustered, stacked, 100% stacked, 3‑D column, etc.
  1. Bar charts
    • Like column charts but horizontal, useful when category names are long or you want to emphasize rankings.
  1. Line charts
    • Show trends over time (months, years, dates) with points connected by lines.
  1. Area charts
    • Like line charts but with the area under the line filled in; good for showing volume or emphasizing totals over time.
  1. Pie charts
    • Show parts of a whole as slices; best with few categories and when percentages add to 100%.
  1. Doughnut charts
    • A pie chart with a hole in the middle, can show multiple data series as rings.
  1. XY (Scatter) charts
    • Plot relationships between two numeric variables on X and Y axes (e.g., height vs. weight, temperature vs. sales).
  1. Bubble charts
    • A variation of scatter charts where bubble size represents a third variable (e.g., revenue, population).
  1. Stock charts
    • Designed for financial data such as high, low, open, close prices.
  1. Surface charts * 3D “surface” view of data, useful when you want to find optimum combinations of two variables (like a topographic map).
  1. Radar (Spider) charts * Values are plotted on spokes radiating from a center, useful for comparing profiles (skills, performance metrics).
  1. Combo charts * Combine two types (e.g., column + line) often with a secondary axis, ideal when you have different scales in one view.

Newer/advanced Excel chart types

In modern Excel versions, you also get several “modern” charts:

  • Histogram
    • Groups data into bins to show frequency distribution (e.g., test scores ranges).
  • Box & Whisker
    • Shows median, quartiles, and outliers; great for statistical comparisons (e.g., distribution of salaries).
  • Waterfall
    • Shows how an initial value is increased or decreased by a series of steps (e.g., profit bridge from revenue to net income).
  • Funnel
    • Visualizes stages in a process (sales pipeline, conversion steps) with decreasing values.
  • Treemap
    • Displays hierarchical data as nested rectangles sized by value.
  • Sunburst
    • Circular version of a treemap, also for hierarchical data (levels shown as rings).
  • Map chart (in newer Office)
    • Plots values by geographic region (countries, states, etc.).

Simple example

If you have a table like:

  • Months: Jan, Feb, Mar
  • Sales: 10, 15, 12

You might choose:

  • Line chart → to see trend over the three months.
  • Column chart → to compare each month’s sales side‑by‑side.
  • Pie chart → if you only care about each month’s share of total sales.

Quick HTML table of common Excel chart types

html

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Chart type</th>
      <th>What it shows best</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Column</td>
      <td>Compare values across categories (e.g., sales by product).</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Bar</td>
      <td>Rankings or comparisons when labels are long.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Line</td>
      <td>Trends over time (time‑series data).</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Area</td>
      <td>Trends plus emphasis on total volume over time.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Pie / Doughnut</td>
      <td>Parts of a whole, simple percentage breakdowns.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Scatter / Bubble</td>
      <td>Relationships between two or three numeric variables.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Stock</td>
      <td>High–low–open–close financial data.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Surface</td>
      <td>3D surfaces for finding optimum combinations.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Radar</td>
      <td>Profiles across multiple metrics (e.g., skill ratings).</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Combo</td>
      <td>Mixed datasets (e.g., columns for volume, line for rate).</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Histogram</td>
      <td>Distributions and frequency of values.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Box &amp; Whisker</td>
      <td>Spread, median, and outliers in datasets.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Waterfall</td>
      <td>Step‑by‑step changes from start value to end value.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Funnel</td>
      <td>Stage‑wise drop‑offs in a process.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Treemap / Sunburst</td>
      <td>Hierarchies and how sub‑categories contribute to the whole.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Map</td>
      <td>Values by region or geography.</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

TL;DR: Excel supports a wide variety of charts—column, bar, line, pie, area, scatter, bubble, stock, surface, radar, combo, plus modern types like histogram, waterfall, treemap, sunburst, funnel, and more—so you can match the chart type to the story your data needs to tell.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.