How to create a multiple columns chart
Column charts might be the easiest to read chart type out there – and can work for both showing data about categories and data that develops over time. Multiple column charts – also called small multiple column charts, trellis plot, facets, grid charts, or panel charts – are column charts where each series gets it own panel. They're a good choice if you want to show many categories (too many for e.g. a grouped column chart), and if you want to want to enable readers to compare numbers within a category (instead of the total).
In short, multiple column charts are great to show lots of series and categories and keep a tidy appearance.
👉 To learn more about Datawrapper multiple columns, read our feature announcement from February 2025.
This guide will show you how to create the following chart:
Preparing and importing the data
To visualize data, you first need the data. The source for the chart on social media usage is Pew Research, and you can download it by clicking on Get the data on the bottom of the chart. The data looks like this:
To make sure that Datawrapper accepts the data, your data should have the following:
- A header row with labels. These will show up as titles above each chart panel (e.g. "Facebook", "Instagram")
- A first column with dates/times or categories. They will define the horizontal axis. Learn here which date formats Datawrapper recognizes. The more rows you have, the more columns your final chart will show in each panel. In our case, each panel will have four columns, because there are four rows.
- Columns with values. They will define each column series and the length of the vertical axis. The more columns you have, the more panels your final chart will have.
Your data is ready to go? Great! Click here to create a new chart in Datawrapper (no need to sign up!). This link brings you automatically in step 1: Upload data. To learn in which formats you can get the data into Datawrapper (CSV, Excel, Google Sheet link, server data...), visit this Academy article. For now, you can just copy & paste the data:
The data looks a bit chaotic in there, so let's quickly move on.
Check & Describe
Once you click on step 2: Check & Describe or on Proceed, you'll see that Datawrapper puts your data into a neat table:
As explained in the upper left of step 2, Datawrapper automatically detects data formats (number, dates, or text) and empty cells. The first column is green, which tells you that Datawrapper correctly identified the dates as dates. The rest of the columns is blue and right-aligned, meaning Datawrapper recognized them as numbers.
You can always change the data format by clicking on the table header and selecting another one.
For now, that looks good, so let's click on step 3: Visualize, to see your data visualized:
Visualize
In step 3, Datawrapper will always show you your data as a line chart: 
Click on any of the other chart types to see your data visualized differently. To create a small multiple line chart, make sure to click on Multiple Lines:
Congratulations! You've successfully created a small multiple line chart:
We'll cover how you can customize and style your chart in the next tutorial, Customizing your Multiple Columns chart.