How to create a waterfall chart

To create a waterfall chart, you first need data. For the chart above, the data comes from Macrotrends (this Google Sheet, which you can copy, contains the final dataset we’re using for our chart).

For any waterfall chart, you need the following data structure:

• A header row with column titles. This will make it easier to navigate and work with the dataset in Datawrapper.
• A first column with column labels. These will show up as titles below each column in the chart. These can be dates, too – for a waterfall chart, you often want to show how something changes over time. Our first column contains the years.
• A second column with the differences or absolute values. This column will translate into the ups and downs that you’re wanting to visualize. You can either upload the differences (e.g. "$40, -$30, -$70"), or the absolute values per year. For our chart, we choose the later: Our column contains how much cash Nintendo owned per year, and Datawrapper calculates the differences between each year. You can tell Datawrapper which kind of numbers – differences or absolute values – your data comes in in step 3: Visualize. Whatever you choose, make sure to remove any thousands separators.
• An optional column with categories for subtotals. If you want to group these ups and downs to show a subtotal after the changes, you’ll need an additional column where you assign the changes to a category. We'll explain more about that in the article about customizing waterfall charts.

This is how the data for our chart looks like:

Your data is ready to go? Great! Click here to create a new chart in Datawrapper. This link brings you automatically to Step 1 — Upload Data. Here you can simply copy and paste your data into the big white text field:

You can also upload a CSV or Excel, or even use data from a server. To learn more, visit this Academy article.

Once you click on Step 2 — Check & Describe (or on Proceed), you'll see that Datawrapper puts your data into a neat table:

Datawrapper automatically detects data formats (number, dates, or text) and empty cells. In our example, the first column is green – a column with dates. The second column is blue and right-aligned, meaning Datawrapper recognized the cells as numbers. If necessary, you can manually change the data format by clicking on the column header and selecting a different format. 

For now, that looks good, so let's click on Step 3 — Visualize, to see your data visualized:

In the Visualize step, Datawrapper will almost always show you your data as a line chart to begin with. Click on any of the other chart types to see your data visualized differently. To create a waterfall chart, simply click on Waterfall.