Vertical bar chart

Single-series vertical bar chart for ranked categorical comparison, small N.

bar-vertical compares discrete categories using the height of rectangular bars. It honours sort, sortMode, valueLabels, and valueLabelPosition. The alias vertical-bar is registered against the same renderer so .bpc documents can read either way.

When to use

• Comparing quantities across a small number of categories (< 12)
• Ranking items when the category labels are short enough to fit horizontally
• A few data points over time (e.g. annual totals for 5 years)

When NOT to use

• Continuous data distributions (no built-in histogram type)
• Many time periods — use line for trends
• Long category labels that would need rotation — use bar-horizontal

Example

chart bar-vertical {
  title = "Brazil produces more coffee than the next three countries combined"
  description = "Million 60-kg bags, 2023/24 crop year"
  source = "USDA Foreign Agricultural Service"
  sourceUrl = "https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/coffee-world-markets-and-trade"
  colorPalette = "Harvey"
  valueLabels = true
  valueLabelPosition = "auto"

  data {
    "Brazil" = 66.4
    "Vietnam" = 27.5
    "Colombia" = 12.76
    "Ethiopia" = 9.13
    "Indonesia" = 7.65
    "Honduras" = 5.5
  }

  colorize "Brazil" {
    color = "#a4432d"
  }

  transform sort {
    column = "value"
    direction = descending
  }
}

Properties

Every property bar-vertical accepts, beside the frame and layout keys every chart shares. Anything absent from this table is rejected by validateChart and ignored by the renderer.

Property	Type	Default
colors	colors	(unset)
colorPalette	select, see Palettes	Blueprint
autoContrast	boolean	false
allowDarkMode	boolean	true
swapLabelValue	boolean	false
barBackground	boolean	false
barSeparators	boolean	false
barGap	text	60
connectedColumns	boolean	false
connectionsOpacity	text	0.15
waterfall	boolean	false
waterfallTotal	boolean	false
categoryLabelLine	boolean	false
showVerticalAxis	boolean	false
verticalAxisDirection	select: left, right	left
showVerticalTicks	boolean	false
verticalLabelPosition	select: auto, inside, outside, off	off
verticalGridStyle	select: solid, dashed, dotted, none	none
verticalNumberFormat	numberFormat	(unset)
verticalScaleType	select: linear, log	linear
verticalRangeMin	text	(unset)
verticalRangeMax	text	(unset)
showHorizontalAxis	boolean	true
showHorizontalTicks	boolean	false
horizontalLabelPosition	select: auto, inside, outside, off	auto
horizontalLabelRotation	select: auto, horizontal, vertical	horizontal
horizontalGridStyle	select: solid, dashed, dotted, none	none
horizontalNumberFormat	numberFormat	(unset)
valueLabels	boolean	true
valueLabelPosition	select: auto, outside, inside	auto
tooltips	boolean	false
crosshair	boolean	false
crosshairDirection	select: both, vertical, horizontal	both
crosshairStyle	select: solid, dashed, dotted	dashed
crosshairColor	text	#999

Common pitfalls

• Truncating the y-axis exaggerates differences and misleads readers — always start at zero
• Too many categories create visual clutter; group small ones into "Other"
• 3D effects distort the encoding — Blueprint Chart doesn't offer them, and you shouldn't fake them

Related types

• bar-horizontal — when labels are long or you want a ranked list
• bar-multi — when you need to compare two or more series side by side
• bar-stacked — when the parts of each bar sum to a meaningful total

See also

• Choosing the right chart
• Design principles