excel chart waterfall

Excel: Chart - waterfall

A dedicated page for the waterfall chart type. Waterfall charts (also called bridge charts) show how an initial value is affected by a series of positive and negative changes, ending with a cumulative total. Common in financial P&L presentations.

Path: /{SheetName}/chart[N]

See also: Chart - add, Chart - set.

Chart type variants

Type string	Aliases
waterfall	wf

Waterfall-specific properties

Colors

Property	Default	Notes
increaseColor	4472C4 (blue)	Color for positive change bars
decreaseColor	FF0000 (red)	Color for negative change bars
totalColor	2E75B6 (dark blue)	Color for the cumulative total bar

Total bar

Property	Default	Notes
waterfallTotal	true	Show cumulative total as the last bar

When true, the last data point is recomputed as the cumulative sum and rendered with totalColor.

Data format

Waterfall data uses a special Tag:Value format to mark totals and subtotals:

Name:Start:1000,Revenue:500,Costs:-300,Tax:-100,Net:1100

• The first value is the starting point
• Intermediate values are deltas (positive = increase, negative = decrease)
• The last value is the cumulative total (auto-calculated when waterfallTotal=true)

Examples

# Basic P&L waterfall
officecli add data.xlsx /Sheet1 --type chart \
  --prop chartType=waterfall \
  --prop title="P&L Waterfall" \
  --prop data="Flow:Start:1000,Revenue:500,Costs:-300,Tax:-100,Net:1100" \
  --prop increaseColor=70AD47 \
  --prop decreaseColor=FF0000 \
  --prop totalColor=4472C4

# Minimal waterfall (auto total)
officecli add data.xlsx /Sheet1 --type chart \
  --prop chartType=waterfall \
  --prop title="Budget Changes" \
  --prop data="Budget:Base:50000,New Hires:12000,Equipment:-3000,Training:-2000,Total:57000"

Implementation details

Waterfall charts are implemented as stacked bar charts with 3 series:

1. Base (invisible) - running total baseline with no fill
2. Increase (visible) - positive change bars
3. Decrease (visible) - negative change bars

The "floating bar" effect is achieved by the invisible base series pushing the visible bars to the correct vertical position. Default gapWidth=80 and overlap=100 for a connected appearance.

HTML preview support

Feature	Preview	Notes
Floating bars	Yes	Via stacked column rendering
Increase/decrease colors	Yes
Total bar color	Yes

Known quirks

• Colors are set at creation only. increaseColor, decreaseColor, and totalColor are applied during add; there is no dedicated setter to change them after creation (use point{N}.color instead).
• Detection pattern: officecli identifies waterfall charts by checking for a stacked bar with 3 series where the first is named "Base" with no fill.

See Also

• Chart - Overview
• Chart add - Add a chart
• Column/bar chart - Underlying rendering

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Based on OfficeCLI v1.0.43