How do I group categories in a column chart?

Hi Lucy,

Thank you for your post, welcome to the forum, in answer to your question normally you would be using stacked columns in this type of operation but to group categories follow these steps:

Select cells (your_range), and then click Chart on the Insert menu.
Click the Standard Types tab. Click Column in the Chart type list, click the Stacked Column icon (the second selection) under Chart sub-type, and then click Next.
In step 2 of the Chart Wizard, click the Series tab. In the Series list, click X, and then click Remove.
Type the following in the Category (X) axis labels box:
=Sheet1!(your_range)
Click Next twice to move to step 4 of the Chart Wizard.
Click As new sheet, and then click Finish.
The labels X1 through X5 appear along the horizontal axis. Y1 through Y4 appear in the legend as series names. You can extend this chart to include more groups by adding more data in two rows for each new group.
The number of rows per category label defines the number of stacks per group. To add another group of two bars, insert a row before each X label, and then add two more columns of data in the new row, such as Y5 and Y6.
The number of columns of data per row defines the number of columns in each stack. For example, if the values for Y3 in the chart (displayed in step 1) are moved to the first row of each group, the chart still has two stacks per group. However, the first stack contains three columns and the second stack contains only one column.

I hope that has helped, regards Pete