“I’d like to display the largest bar in a different colour to the other bars in my bar or column chart but…I’d like to be able to do it automatically…without VBA”. I hear that request many times.

If this was a range of cells and not a chart I’d suggest using Conditional Formatting. Unfortunately Excel doesn’t support Conditional Formatting in charts but there’s a neat workaround and that’s what this video is about.

Using a simple IF function and changing the Series Overlap value, you can automatically have the largest (or smallest or any other user-defined criteria) bar displayed in a different colour to the other bars.

You can download the demo workbook from the link in the video description on YouTube

Links to the video and individual sections below

Introduction

Create the IF Function

Change the Series Overlap Value

Hide a Column and Display Hidden Values on the Chart