Graphs Bar Chart

• Coding
• The first Result
• Editing
• The edited result
• Download the sample data file

We surveyed 714 people and we recorded in which district the interview took place. The variable district has the following value codes:

Coding:

We want to construct a bar chart for this variable. In this example we use Graphs > Chart Builder...:

We have chosen Bar, dragged the graph icon for a simple bar chart to the preview field and dragged the variable District to the "X-Axis?" field. The "Y-Axis?" field takes on the default setting (which is Count). We kept this and all other default settings.

The first Result

Clearly this graph needs editing. A title is missing. Depending on the context where it will be published it might need a source.
And of course showing data labels in the separate bars of the graph has an added value.
We also have to consider the orientation of the bars, the colors and the fonts that are used.

Double clicking on the chart in the SPSS output windows opens the graph in a new Chart Editor window.

Editing:

If you click on a part of the graph the corresponding Properties Window appears. It might have several tabs. As an example you see the Properties Window that pops up when you click on the bars. On the active tab you can change the order of display, but as you can see there are more tabs where you can make adjustments. It isn't useful to show you all of these dialog boxes. There are too many of them and they all work in a similar way. You choose the options that you want and click on "Apply". The changes will show in the chart. If you like it then keep it. Otherwise go back to the dialog and change it again. If the Properties Window doesn't show you can activate it via the button   Explore the other buttons of the tool bars as well:

The edited result:

Note: Copying and pasting graphs into Word works fine most of the time, but not always.
As an alternative you can use the Export option in the SPSS output window.
Select in the output window the chart you want to export and from the menu choose File > Export... .
Next fill in the dialog box to get what you want.