Lengthy labels could be problematic in charts. Divisions such as Home Care, Personal Care; products such as Coffee & Tea, Water & Hydration; salesperson names such as Margaret Peacock, Janet Leverling—all require space to identify items in the chart.

Excel has several options to handle lengthy labels, such as setting the labels at an angle.

...or, setting the Text direction to Horizontal with a bit of luck adjusting the chart size.

Jon Peltier from Peltier Tech came up with a smart way to prevent overlapping of labels by enforcing a line break (Alt + Enter) before alternate labels. You can read about this trick here.

Another alternative is to stagger the axis labels and add leader lines to connect the label to its respective bar in the chart as shown below. The chart shows the cummulative number of points collected by the Formula One driver Verstappen in each race in 2021. The axis labels are alternately displayed at two levels. Leader lines connect the labels away from the axis with the respective bar in the chart.

Let’s build this chart in Excel.

The dataset for the graphic above is in the range A1:B23 as shown in the screenshot below.

1. Calculate the cumulative number of points by entering the following formulas in the respective cells:
C1 --> Enter the text label "Cum. PTS"
C2 --> = B2
C3 --> = B3 + C2

Select cell C3 and drag the handle to copy the formula all the way down to cell C23.

2. Next, we need to position the alternate labels below the horizontal axis, say at -60. For that enter the following formulas in the respective cells:
D1 --> Enter the text label "Labels"
D2 --> = IF(MOD(ROW(),2) <> 0,-60,NA())

Select cell D3 and drag the handle to copy the formula all the way down to cell D23. The worksheet should look like this:

3. Select any cell within the range A2:D23 and then, on the Insert tab, in the Charts group, click Insert Column or Bar Chart > Clustered Column. The chart should look like this:

Lets do some cleaning.

4. Delete the horizontal gridlines and the vertical axis.
5. Turn off the border of the Chart Area by setting its Shape Outline to No line.
6. Delete the Chart Title and the Legend.
7. Delete the Series "PTS" and the chart should look like this:

...or, rotating text direction by 270 degrees.

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8. On the worksheet, select the chart and then click the Change Chart Type icon in the Type group under the Chart Design tab.
9. In the Change Chart Type dialog box, select Combo under the All Charts tab.
10. Next, make sure that the Chart Type for the Cum. PTS data series is Clustered Column and that of the Labels data series is Line as per the below screenshot:

11. Press the Ok button to close the Change Chart Type dialog box. The chart should look like this:

12. Right-click the Horizontal (Category) Axis and then, on the shortcut menu, click Format Axis.
13. In the Format Axis pane, with Axis Options selected, set the Specify interval unit (under Labels) to 2.
14. Next, under Text Options click the Textbox icon and set the Text direction to Horizontal and set the Custom angle to 0 degrees. The chart should look like this:

Thank you for reading, and I hope you found this useful. If you have any questions, find me on Twitter and ask me anything.

15. Select the Labels series in the chart then click the Charts Elements button located on the upper-right corner of the chart. Next, in the expanded menu, check the Error Bars option, as per the screenshot below:

16. Right-click the Series "Labels" Y Error Bars in the chart and then, on the shortcut menu, click Format Error Bars.
17. In the Format Error Bars pane, with Error Bars Option icon selected, set the Direction to Plus and the End Style to No Cap.
18. Set Error Amount to Fixed value of 60. The chart should look like this:

19. Right-click the Series “Labels” in the chart and then, on the shortcut menu, click Add Data Labels.
20. Next, right-click the Series “Labels” Data Labels and then, on the shortcut menu, click Format Data Labels.
21. In the Format Data Labels pane, with Label Options selected, set the Label Position to Below.
22. Under Label Contains, check the Category Name option and uncheck the Value option. The chart should look like this:

23. In order to avoid leader lines to overlap with long labels I'll insert a line break in all labels made of two words such Saudi Arabia and United States. I'll do that by pressing Alt + Enter into the cell between the first word and the second. The line break will force these labels to display on two lines as follows:

Lets do some formatting.

24.Change the chart Font to Trebuchet MS, its color to Black and size to 9.
25. Select the "Cum. PTS" series in the chart and then set its Shape Fill, under the Format tab, to Light Blue. While the series is still selected click the Charts Elements button located on the upper-right corner of the chart. Next, in the expanded menu, check the Data Labels option.
26. Next, select the horizontal axis and set its Shape Outline, under the Format tab, to Black and its Weight to 1.5 pt.
27. In the chart, right-click the "Cum. PTS" series and, on the shortcut menu, select Format Data Series. In the Format Data Series pane, under Series Options, set the Gap Width to 25%.
28. Add a title and data source to the graph and the chart should look like this: