Get started with Flourish - create a bar chart – Flourish

This help doc is designed for beginners to Flourish. By the end, you will learn how to create a bar chart and the basics needed to create any chart with Flourish

Part One

Choosing a template and adding data

1

The Template Chooser

Starting from your project page, select your chart type by clicking on the blue button titled Create New Visualization. From there, you will be taken to the Template Chooser. Here you can scroll to see the different types of templates Flourish has to offer, such as Pie, Line, Maps, and Hierarchy.

If you are unsure what type of template to use, you can use the Purpose filter. You can filter by purpose, such as Change over time, or by type, such as Small multiples.

For additional help on selecting the right template for your data, see this help document.

For this exercise, select the bar chart template to get started.

To learn nore about creating a visualization, please see this article.

2

Adding data to Flourish

After selecting the bar chart template, you will be taken to the template editor. Each template contains sample data, which can be seen here.

Click on the Data tab to view details on how the data should be formatted to work properly within this template.. For this bar chart, you need a column for labels (column A) and a column for values (column B).

To add your own data, first delete the sample data. You can do this by highlighting all data and deleting, or by selecting Clear Sheet from the Data dropdown menu.

After deleting the sample data:

Copy the data from the google sheet linked at the bottom of this page by highlighting the data and selecting Command + C on a Mac or Ctrl + C on a PC.
Paste the data into the data sheet in Flourish by clicking the top left cell then selecting Command + V on a Mac or Ctrl + V on a PC, or
Upload a file from your computer using the Upload Data tab:

Next, check that the columns in your data properly match the columns in the data sheet, ensuring that you have a column for labels and a column for values. Click on the Preview tab to view your data as a bar chart.

For more on how to delete or add data into Flourish, see this guide on adding data to a template.

Title, source, and labels

3

Adding a title and a source

Title and source information can be found at the bottom of this page, as well as in the Google sheet you used to create your bar chart.

To add a title, start in the Preview tab of your chart, scroll down until you find Header on the right side of the screen and click to open.

Copy the provided title from the google sheet and paste it into the Title field. Do the same with the subtitle by copying it and adding it to the Subtitle field.

To add source information, scroll down to the Footer section, or use the search bar at the bottom of the page to help locate the correct tab.

From the provided Google sheet, copy the source name and URL and add them to the open fields in Flourish.

4

Sorting and Adding Labels to Bars

To make the bar chart easier to read, we recommend organizing the bars from largest to smallest.

To do this, locate Sort Mode under the Chart Type tab, and select Value.

You can also sort the bars from A to Z or from Z to A by selecting the dropdown at the top of column B in the data sheet.

Next, add labels to the bars in your chart. To do this, navigate to the Labels tab and click on Show labels on data points.

Notice that the labels now appear for each bar, but they are quite long. To shorten these, remove the zeros in each data point by going to the Number formatting tab, then:

Adding the letter m in the Suffix field, then
Click on Advanced
Scroll down and turn on Multiply/divide vales
Select Divide by from the dropdown
Add 1000000 in the field next to the dropdown

Now that the cleaner labels have been added, the x-axis can optionally be removed. To do this, remove this by opening the X Axis tab, then clicking on Hidden, under the Position setting.

5

Testing screen size and settings sharing options

Flourish allows you to test what your chart will look like on different sized screens. To do this, select and drag the right side of the chart.

You can also choose from one of the three buttons in the upper left corner of the screen to see your chart in the following screen sizes:

Desktop
Tablet
Mobile

In the Mobile view, notice that the Y axis labels are quite long. To better accommodate these, navigate to Labels, then select Above bars.

Flourish offers a number of options for sharing your visualizations. Though you do not need to do so, you can find these by selecting the Share button at the top of the screen. From the drop down, you can select the following sharing options:

Only I can view
Anyone at [your organization's name] can view
Anyone at [your organization's name] can edit

To distinguish this chart from other projects you are working on, give the visualization a name. Copy the title of the chart and paste it in the file name in the upper left corner.

6

Exporting your chart

Flourish gives you a number of ways to export your chart. You can access these options by clicking on the Export & publish button.

From there, you can:

Export your visualization directly into Canva
Download as HTM or an image (PNG, SVG, or JPEG)
Publish and embed

If you choose to publish and embed, select Publish to share and embed. From there, you will be asked if you'd like to require a password to open your file or allow others to duplicate your chart. You can select either of those, or just click Publish.

Once you publish, a series of embedding options will appear:

A link that is sharable
Script to include in your CMS, or
Under More Options, you can download an iFrame or AMP of your chart

Flourish recommends that you use the embed script when possible, as it allows the visualization to be fully responsive, particularly when viewing on mobiles.

Part Two

Custom Colors

1

Flourish allows you to fully customize the colors in your visualization. To do this, open the Colors tab on the right. Select By row, which will assign a separate color to each bar.

2

To edit the colors in the chart, click on the dropdown next to the color palette. This will allow you to select from a number of other palettes.

To edit the colors in the current palette, select Edit color palette. From here, you can:

Change each color individually by clicking on the color box and selecting a new color
Remove any unwanted colors by clicking on the X to the right of the color

3

Add specific colors to your chart with the Custom overrides setting. This allows you to assign colors to each bar with the name, Hex code, or RGB numbers of the desired color. Hover over the ? next to this setting to see details on how to add custom colors.