Bar Chart Race Tutorial

Start a new project and pick Bar Chart Race as the type. Two choices matter before you import anything.

Canvas size decides where the video will fit. 1920×1080 is the standard landscape frame for YouTube; 1080×1920 is the vertical frame for Shorts, Reels, and TikTok. You can change it later, but the layout is worth settling early.

Period is how far your data steps between rows — daily, monthly, or annually.

A race needs the same set of items measured repeatedly over time. Put one column per item and one row per period, with the first column holding the date.

Two optional header rows do a lot of work: an image row attaches a logo or flag to each column, and a color row gives each item its own bar colour.

Gaps are fine. If an item has no value for a period, leave the cell empty — missing points are interpolated, so items can join or leave the race partway through.

Open the Chart section. Visible Item Count is the setting people get wrong most often: ten to twelve bars stay readable at 1080p. Fewer than eight looks sparse, and past fifteen the labels are too small to read on a phone — which is where most of your viewers are.

Order Items sets the sort direction, Show Items controls which entries are eligible, and Space Between Items tunes the gap between bars.

Max Value decides whether the axis rescales each period or stays fixed across the whole race. A global maximum keeps the bars comparable end to end; a local one keeps them filling the frame.

The Bar section controls how each bar looks. Bar Color sets the default fill — the colour header row in your spreadsheet overrides it per item.

Bar Width Scale is the one worth understanding. On a linear scale the bars are proportional to their values, which is honest but unreadable when the leader is ten times the size of everyone else. A logarithmic scale keeps the smaller bars visible while the leader still leads.

Bar Corner Radius, Bar Border Width, and Border Color handle the finish; Bar Opacity is useful when you have a busy background image.

In the Value section, Value Animation is the setting that most changes how the race feels. Instant snaps each number to its new value; Rolling digits spins them like an odometer so the counting is part of the motion. It costs nothing at render time.

Value Prefix and Value Postfix add units — a leading $, a trailing M or %. Decimals and Value Format control rounding and thousands separators, and Value Multiplier rescales raw figures so you can store exact numbers and still display millions.

Images are what make a race look finished. Add an image header row to your spreadsheet with a URL or uploaded file per column, and each bar carries its own logo, flag, or portrait.

In the Image section, Image Shape chooses between a circle and a rectangle — circles suit faces and channel avatars, rectangles suit flags and logos that would be clipped. Image Size and Image Padding tune the fit.

The Title section styles the item labels: Title Font Family, Title Font Size, Title Align, and Title color. If your labels are long, Title Width and Title Orientation stop them crowding the bars.

The Ruler section adds vertical gridlines behind the race. They make large values easier to read at a glance, and dropping their opacity keeps them from competing with the bars.

Choose a resolution and frame rate, then render. The free plan exports MP4 at 30 fps with a small watermark. Pro removes the watermark and unlocks 60 fps plus WebM and transparent WebP — the transparent format is what you want when overlaying the race on footage in an editor.

Aim for a finished length between thirty seconds and three minutes. Longer races tend to lose viewers before the interesting overtakes happen.