How to Create a Marimekko Chart in PowerPoint (Mekko Chart Guide)

If you spend any time in strategy consulting or business analytics, you have almost certainly come across a Marimekko chart - whether you knew the name or not. They are a staple of McKinsey, BCG, and Bain decks, and for good reason: no other standard chart type communicates two dimensions of market or segment data simultaneously in such a compact, visual way.

The challenge, of course, is that PowerPoint does not include a Marimekko chart type out of the box. That means you need to either adapt an existing chart or build one from scratch using shapes. This post walks you through what Marimekko charts are, when you should use them, and (most importantly!) exactly how to create them in PowerPoint, step by step.

What is a Marimekko Chart?

A Marimekko chart (also called a Mekko chart, or in some contexts a mosaic plot or variable-width column chart) is a two-dimensional chart that encodes data in both the width and the height of its columns. Each column represents a category, with the column's width proportional to the category's total size (for example, total market revenue). Within each column, horizontal segments represent sub-categories, with each segment's height proportional to that sub-category's share of the column total.

The name comes from Marimekko, the Finnish design company known for its bold, rectangular fabric patterns, which the chart closely resembles.

What data is a Marimekko chart best suited to represent?

Marimekko charts are ideal whenever you want to show both the relative size of categories and the composition of each category at the same time. Common use cases include:

• Market sizing and segmentation - showing total market size per region alongside product or customer mix within each region
• Revenue breakdown - revenue by business unit (width) and margin or product mix within each unit (height)
• Portfolio analysis - comparing business divisions by size and their internal composition (e.g. by geography, product line, or customer type)
• Survey data - displaying responses across demographic groups of different sizes
• Competitive benchmarking - comparing competitors by market size and their share of customer segments

Why use a Marimekko chart instead of other chart types?

The most obvious alternative to a Marimekko is a simple stacked bar or 100% stacked bar chart. Those charts are perfectly good for showing composition - but they treat every category column as the same width, which hides the fact that one category might be ten times larger than another. A Marimekko solves this by making the column width carry meaning. The result is that the area of each rectangle in the chart is directly proportional to its absolute value, not just its relative share.

Compared to a pie chart, a Marimekko is far superior when you have multiple groups to compare, because pie charts can only show the composition of a single group at a time. A Marimekko shows multiple groups and their compositions simultaneously, with an honest representation of relative group size - something that would otherwise require a whole series of pie charts.

Option 1: Using a PowerPoint Stacked Bar Chart as a Starting Point

Here is the honest truth: PowerPoint does not have a dedicated Marimekko chart type in its native chart gallery. If you go to the Insert tab and click Chart, you will find Column, Bar, Line, Pie, Area, Scatter, and others - but no Marimekko.

However, you can get surprisingly close using a 100% Stacked Bar chart combined with some creative axis and gap formatting. This approach works best when your categories are of roughly similar sizes (or when exact width-proportionality between columns is not critical) and you mainly want to communicate the composition side of the data. Here is how:

Step 1 - Insert a 100% Stacked Bar chart

Go to the Insert tab on the ribbon and click Chart. In the Insert Chart dialog box, select Bar from the left-hand list, then choose 100% Stacked Bar. Click OK.

Step 2 - Enter your data 

PowerPoint will open a linked spreadsheet (this is a mini Excel window embedded in PowerPoint). Replace the placeholder data with your own. Rows represent your sub-categories (the segments stacked within each column), and columns represent your main categories. Give each series a label - these will appear in the chart legend.

Step 3 - Eliminate the gap width to make the bars touch

Right-click on any bar in the chart and choose Format Data Series from the context menu. In the Format Data Series pane that appears on the right, change the Gap Width slider to 0%. This makes all columns run together with no space between them, which is the visual hallmark of a Marimekko.

Step 4 - Add data labels

Right-click on the chart and select Add Data Labels. Then right-click the labels and choose Format Data Labels. In the Label Options section, you can choose to show the percentage value and/or the series name inside each segment. For Marimekko charts, showing the percentage is usually the most useful choice.

Step 5 - Clean up the chart area

Click on the horizontal axis labels and press Delete to remove them if they are not needed. Right-click the legend and select Format Legend to reposition it. Remove the chart border by right-clicking the chart area (the outermost border), selecting Format Chart Area, then setting the border to No line under the Border options.

Limitation of this approach: A 100% Stacked Bar chart gives each category the same column width, which is the fundamental difference from a true Marimekko chart. If showing relative category size is important to your message - and in most Marimekko use cases it is - use Option 2 or Option 3 below, which allow true variable column widths.

Option 2: Simulating Variable Column Widths with a Stacked Bar Chart and Spacer series

For a PowerPoint Marimekko chart with true variable column widths using a native chart object, experienced consultants use a Stacked Bar chart with invisible "spacer" data series between each real column to position them at the correct proportional widths.

Prepare your data before inserting the chart

Before inserting a chart, calculate the following:

• Set your total chart width to 100 units for simplicity.
• Calculate each category's width: if North America is 45% of total revenue, its column width = 45 units.
• For each segment within a category: segment value = segment % × column width (e.g., Enterprise at 40% of 45 units = 18 units).
• Add an invisible "spacer" series between each real column to push subsequent columns to the correct position.

Step 1: Insert a Stacked Bar chart via Insert > Chart > Bar > Stacked Bar. Enter your pre-calculated data, including the spacer columns.

Step 2: Set the Gap Width to 0% (right-click any bar > Format Data Series > Gap Width slider). This removes spacing between groups.

Step 3: Make the spacer series invisible. Right-click on each spacer bar and choose Format Data Series. Under Fill & Line, set Fill to No fill and Border to No line. The spacers disappear, leaving only the real data columns at the correct proportional widths.

Step 4: Apply colors and labels as in Option 1. Right-click each data series and choose Format Data Series to set fill colors. Add data labels via right-click > Add Data Labels.

Pro tip: Build your data table and verify all width calculations in a separate Excel file before pasting into the PowerPoint chart spreadsheet. The embedded spreadsheet that opens when you insert a PowerPoint chart is fully functional Excel, but complex calculations are easier to audit externally first.

Option 3: Building a Marimekko Chart with PowerPoint Shapes (Recommended)

For professional-quality Marimekko charts in PowerPoint - particularly for client-ready strategy presentations, the most reliable method is to build the chart manually using rectangle shapes. This is the approach used by most consultants, and it produces results that are visually indistinguishable from dedicated Marimekko charting software.

The key insight is that each rectangle's width and height on the slide directly represents your data values. On an 18 cm wide, 10 cm tall chart: a category with 40% of total market size gets a column exactly 7.2 cm wide, and a segment with 60% share within that column gets a rectangle 6 cm tall.

Before you start: prepare a data table

Create a simple table organized as follows:

• Column headers = your main categories (e.g., regions, business units)
• Row headers = your sub-categories (e.g., product lines, customer types)
• Each cell = sub-category percentage share within that column (each column sums to 100%)
• A separate row for column widths = percentage each category represents of the total (sums to 100%)

Step 1 – Set up your chart canvas

Decide on your overall chart dimensions - 18 cm wide and 10 cm tall is a common choice for a PowerPoint Marimekko. Insert a boundary rectangle: go to Insert > Shapes > Rectangle. Right-click it and select Size and Position to set exact dimensions. Set the fill to No fill and use a light border so you can see the boundary while building. Delete this guide rectangle once the chart is complete.

Step 2 – Calculate your shape sizes

For each column: column width (cm) = chart width × category % as decimal. For example, 35% on an 18 cm chart = 18 × 0.35 = 6.3 cm. For each segment: segment height (cm) = chart height × segment % as decimal. A 55% segment on a 10 cm chart = 5.5 cm. Calculate all values before inserting shapes - it saves significant rework.

Step 3 – Insert the segment rectangles

Go to Insert > Shapes > Rectangle. Draw a rectangle, then right-click and select Size and Position to enter your precise width and height. Set the fill via Format Shape > Fill > Solid fill. Remove the border by setting it to No line. Use the Position fields to stack each rectangle exactly below the previous one within the column. Press Ctrl+D to duplicate a rectangle rather than inserting a new one - it retains fill color and border settings.

Step 4 – Repeat for each category column

Place each column immediately to the right of the previous one. The X position of each new column = sum of all previous column widths + the chart's left position. Use the Size and Position dialog for exact coordinates throughout.

Step 5 – Add data labels inside shapes

Right-click each rectangle and choose Edit Text - this adds the label directly inside the shape so it moves with it. Type the percentage value and center it using the alignment buttons on the Home tab. Use white text on dark-colored segments and dark text on light segments. For very small segments, insert a separate text box via Insert > Text Box and use a connector line to point to it.

Step 6 – Add column labels and category names

Insert text boxes below each column showing the category name and width percentage (e.g., "North America - 45%"). Where space allows, add the absolute market size value (e.g., "$12.4B"). This context is what makes a Marimekko chart genuinely useful for a business audience rather than just visually interesting.

Step 7 – Add a Y-axis scale and legend

Insert a text box on the left of the chart and label 0% at the bottom and 100% at the top. Add markers at 25%, 50%, and 75% if the chart height allows. For the legend, insert small colored rectangles matching your segment fill colors with text labels alongside - or label segments directly inside the rectangles if they are large enough to accommodate the text.

Step 8 – Group all elements

Select all chart elements - hold Shift and click each element, or draw a selection box around the entire chart area. Press Ctrl+G to group them. Your Marimekko chart is now a single object that can be moved without displacing individual segments.

Alignment tip: Use alignment features in PowerPoint to tidy up your shapes. Select all rectangles in a column and use Align Left to ensure perfect left-alignment, then Distribute Vertically to close any gaps. Enable PowerPoint Guides via View > Show > Guides to mark column boundary positions - this makes precise placement significantly faster when building a Marimekko chart with many segments.

Option 4: Other Tools

If you frequently create Marimekko charts and neither the native chart workaround nor the manual shapes approach suits your workflow, here are a few additional options worth knowing about.

Build in Excel, paste as a picture or linked chart

Microsoft Excel also does not natively support Marimekko charts (they were added as a chart type in Excel 2016 under the name Treemap, which is related, but not the same as a Marimekko). However, you can build a Marimekko in Excel using the same stacked bar / spacer series technique described in Option 2, and then either paste the chart into PowerPoint as a linked chart object (so it updates when the Excel data changes) or paste it as a picture for a clean, static image.

To paste as a linked chart: copy the chart in Excel, then in PowerPoint go to the Home tab, click the dropdown arrow under Paste, and select Paste Special > Paste Link.

Python or R for data-driven charts

If you are working with large or frequently updated datasets, generating the Marimekko programmatically using Python (with libraries such as matplotlib or plotly) or R (with ggplot2) and then importing the output as a high-resolution image into PowerPoint can be a very efficient workflow. Save the output as a PNG or SVG, then in PowerPoint go to Insert > Pictures > ... select your file location to import it.

Formatting Tips for Professional Marimekko Charts in PowerPoint

Regardless of which method you use to create your Marimekko chart, how you format and annotate it makes a significant difference to how clearly it communicates. These are the guidelines that the best consulting Marimekko charts consistently follow:

• Limit your color palette. Use one color family with two or three shades for segments. Reserve a contrasting highlight color to draw attention to a specific segment if needed.
• Label every segment with its percentage value. Never make your audience interpret segment sizes visually - they should be able to read the data without a ruler.
• Show the column width percentage below each column (e.g., "45% of market") so readers immediately understand what each column represents in terms of total size.
• Include absolute values where possible. Adding the actual revenue or market size (e.g., "$12.4B") dramatically increases the chart's usefulness for business decision-making.
• Use connector lines for very small segments where labels cannot fit inside the rectangle. Insert a Line shape from Insert > Shapes to point to an external label.
• Remove chart borders and background fills for a cleaner look. A borderless Marimekko on a white slide background always looks more professional.
• Write an action title that conveys the key insight, not just what the chart shows. "North America dominates revenue but lags on Enterprise penetration" is far stronger than "Revenue by Region and Customer Segment".

Which Method Should You Use to Create a Marimekko Chart in PowerPoint?

For a quick one-off approximation, Option 1 is fine. For a client-ready presentation where column width accuracy matters - and with a Marimekko chart it almost always does - Option 3 (manual shapes) is the most reliable and gives the cleanest results without any additional software. Once built and grouped, save your Marimekko to a slide library such as the PPT Productivity Slide Library and reuse it as a template - just adjust the rectangle dimensions and labels for future charts.

Conclusion

Marimekko charts - also called Mekko charts or mosaic plots - are one of the most powerful tools in the consulting and business analytics toolkit for communicating two-dimensional data in a single, compact visual. While PowerPoint does not include a native Marimekko chart type, you have several practical methods: adapting a stacked bar chart, using the spacer-series technique for proportional column widths, or building the chart manually from rectangle shapes for maximum precision.

The manual shapes approach takes a little setup but gives you complete control, integrates perfectly with your presentation's color scheme, and produces results that are indistinguishable from dedicated charting software. With the sizing calculations done upfront and PowerPoint's alignment tools doing the heavy lifting, it is very achievable - even under a tight deadline.

If you regularly create complex charts and want to speed up your workflow, tools like the PPT Productivity alignment and shape tools can significantly reduce the number of clicks needed to size, align, and format shapes - real time savings across a full deck build.