PlotRange adjustments with BarChart

Good question. The problem is that the chart labels are placed as Text objects inside the Graphics body rather than as Ticks along an axis or frame. Further, the extent of the bars is not limited by the PlotRange. To get around this we can convert the Text labels to Ticks. (Version 7 does not appear to accept Placed[. . . , Axis] as shown in kguler's answer or this could likely be simplified.)

Since the format of the output of BarChart likely changes between version I shall describe what I am doing so that it can be adapted to other versions.

First I create a chart with additional options to yield the look desired:

ch =
 BarChart[RandomReal[1, 10],
  BarSpacing -> Large,
  PlotRange -> {Automatic, {0.2, 1}},
  PlotRangePadding -> {Automatic, 0},
  PlotRangeClipping -> True,
  ChartLabels -> Range@10
 ]

No labels are visible but they are present in the code itself. There is a GraphicsGroup containing a series of Text objects of the form:

Text[Pane[1], Offset[{0, -2}, {0.5, 0}], ImageScaled[{1/2, 1}]]

From these we can extract the label information:

labels = Cases[ch[[1]], Text[lbl_, Offset[_, {pos_, _}], ___] :> {pos, lbl, 0}, -4];

And then add them to the chart as tick labels:

Show[ch, Ticks -> {labels, Automatic}]

---

Update

In recent versions of Mathematica BarChart defaults to Axes -> {False, True}; the x axis must be drawn for the Tick labels to be displayed:

Show[ch, Ticks -> {labels}, Axes -> True]

Alternatively Frame and FrameTicks may be used as s0rce shows below.

---

edit (by s0rce):

I'm not sure why, but this wasn't working for me as is. However, I almost always use Frame->True and when I did that everything worked (with some minor FrameTicks and PlotRangePadding adjustment).

ch = 
 BarChart[RandomReal[1, 10], 
  BarSpacing -> Large, 
  Frame -> True, 
  PlotRange -> {Automatic, {0.2, 1}}, 
  PlotRangePadding -> {Automatic, 0}, 
  PlotRangeClipping -> True, 
  ChartLabels -> Range@10
]

labels = Cases[ch[[1]], 
   Text[lbl_, Offset[_, {pos_, _}], ___] :> {pos, lbl, 0}, -4];

Show[ch, FrameTicks -> {labels, Automatic, False, False}]

Ok, you mean like this? Will clean this more, just wanted to know if this is what you wanted. If you do not want to move the origin also, you can remove the AxesOrigin -> {0, z} from the code

Manipulate[

 f[{{xmin_, xmax_}, {ymin_, ymax_}}, ___] := 
  Module[{h = ymax - ymin, t},
   t = If[z >= h, h, z];
   Polygon[{{xmin, ymin + t}, {xmax, ymin + t}, {xmax, ymax}, {xmin, ymax}}]];

 Grid[{
   {
    BarChart[data, BarSpacing -> Large, ImageSize -> 300, 
     ChartElementFunction -> f, PlotRange -> {All, {-5, 5}},AxesOrigin -> {0, z}],

    BarChart[data, BarSpacing -> Large, ImageSize -> 300, 
     PlotRange -> {All, {-5, 5}}, ChartLabels -> Placed[Range[10], Below], 
     AxesOrigin -> {0, 0}]
    }}],

 {{z, 0.2, "z="}, 0, 3, .1, Appearance -> "Labeled"},

 TrackedSymbols :> {z},
 Initialization :>
  {
   data = RandomReal[{1, 5}, 10];
   }
 ]