How to Connect Dots on Excel Graph

Ever created a chart in Excel only to be left with a set of floating data points? While a simple scatter plot is great for showing relationships, connecting those dots can transform your chart into a story that reveals trends, progress, and sequences. This guide will walk you through exactly how to connect dots on an Excel graph, troubleshoot common issues, and choose the right chart to make your data clear and impactful.

Why Connect the Dots in the First Place?

Connecting data points on a graph does more than just make it look complete. It serves several important purposes that help you and your audience understand the data more deeply.

• Showing a Sequence: When your data points represent steps in a process or a series of events over time, connecting them illustrates the progression from one point to the next. For example, tracking a project's cost versus its completion percentage.
• Visualizing Trends Over Time: For time-series data, like monthly sales or daily website traffic, connecting the dots with a line is the standard way to show patterns. You can instantly see upward or downward trends, seasonality, and significant changes.
• Highlighting Relationships: By connecting data points, you can better visualize the relationship between two variables. As one variable increases, what happens to the other? The connecting line makes this relationship much more intuitive than a cloud of isolated dots.

In short, connecting the dots turns your static data points into a dynamic narrative, making it easier for anyone to follow along and grasp the key message.

Choosing the Right Chart: Line Chart vs. Scatter with Lines

Before you can connect any dots, it's essential to understand that Excel has two primary chart types for this purpose: the Line Chart and the Scatter with Lines Chart. They look similar but handle data in fundamentally different ways. Choosing the wrong one is the most common reason for messy, nonsensical charts.

When to Use a Line Chart

A Line Chart is best used when your horizontal axis (the X-axis) is made up of non-numeric, evenly spaced categories like dates, months, quarters, or text labels.

• Ideal for Time-Series Data: Think monthly revenue, quarterly user growth, or daily temperatures.
• Data Order Matters: A Line Chart plots data points from left to right, strictly following the order they appear in your spreadsheet. Reordering your rows will change the chart's appearance.
• Evenly Spaced Labels: It treats each X-axis label as a distinct category with equal spacing, regardless of the actual time between them. It doesn’t know that 30 days passed between "Jan" and "Feb" and only 1 day between "Mon" and "Tue", it just places them as sequential, equidistant labels.

When to Use a Scatter Chart (with Lines)

A Scatter Chart (also called an XY Scatter Chart) is the right choice when both your horizontal (X-axis) and vertical (Y-axis) axes contain numerical values. This is your go-to for showing the relationship between two different variables.

• Ideal for Scientific or Unordered Data: Perfect for plotting things like advertising spend vs. sales, temperature vs. ice cream sales, or experiment measurements taken at irregular intervals.
• Numeric X-Axis Scale: A Scatter Chart uses a true numerical scale on the X-axis, meaning it correctly spaces out your data points based on their actual value. The distance between 10 and 20 will be the same as the distance between 50 and 60.
• Controlled Connection Order: Just like a Line Chart, it connects dots based on their order in your spreadsheet. This is critical to remember! If you want your line to follow the X-axis from smallest to largest, you must first sort your data by the X-axis column.

The quick takeaway: Use a Line Chart for time-based categories. Use a Scatter Chart for plotting the relationship between two sets of numbers.

Method 1: Connecting Dots on a Scatter Plot

Let's say you have data showing the relationship between study hours and exam scores. A scatter plot is perfect for this. Here's how to create the plot and then connect the dots.

Here’s our sample data:

Study Hours Exam Score 2 65 5 80 1 55 8 92 4 75 6 85

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Sort Your Data (The Most Important Step!)

Remember, a scatter plot connects points in the order they appear. If we plot the data above as-is, the connecting line will zigzag all over the place. To create a smooth, logical line, you must first sort the data by the X-axis variable (Study Hours).

• Highlight your entire data set, including the headers.
• Go to the Data tab in Excel's ribbon.
• Click Sort.
• In the Sort dialog box, choose "Study Hours" from the "Sort by" dropdown.
• Ensure the Order is "Smallest to Largest" and click OK.

Your data should now look like this:

Study Hours Exam Score 1 55 2 65 4 75 5 80 6 85 8 92

2. Create the Scatter Plot

• Select your sorted data (cells A1:B7 in our example).
• Go to the Insert tab.
• In the "Charts" group, click the "Insert Scatter (X, Y) or Bubble Chart" icon.
• Select the first option, "Scatter," which shows only the data points (the dots).

You’ll now have a basic scatter plot with unconnected dots.

3. Connect the Dots by Changing the Chart Style

Now, let's turn that series of dots into a connected line.

• Click on your chart to select it. This will bring up the "Chart Design" and "Format" tabs.
• Go to the Chart Design tab.
• Click on Change Chart Type.
• In the dialog box, stay in the "XY (Scatter)" category on the left.
• Now, choose one of the options with lines:
• Select the style you prefer and click OK.

That's it! Your dots will now be connected in a logical order, showing a clear upward trend of higher scores with more study hours.

Method 2: Creating a Line Chart for Sequential Data

If your data is sequential, like monthly sales, a Line Chart is a better and easier choice because it’s designed to connect points automatically.

Here’s another sample dataset:

Month Sales January $10,000 February $12,500 March $11,000 April $15,000 May $18,000 June $17,500

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Select Your Data: Highlight the entire data table, including headers (A1:B7).
2. Insert the Line Chart: Go to the Insert tab. In the "Charts" section, click the "Insert Line or Area Chart" icon.
3. Choose Your Style: Select the first 2-D Line chart option, "Line with Markers." This will create a line chart that not only connects the points but also displays a marker at each data point.

Because you chose a Line Chart, Excel automatically connects the dots sequentially. There's no need to sort the data or change the chart type after creating it. You immediately get a chart showing the trend of sales over the six months.

Troubleshooting Common Problems

"My dots are connected in the wrong order!"

This is the classic sign of using a Scatter Chart with unsorted data. The line jumps back and forth because it's connecting points in the order they appear in your table, not by their X-axis value.

The Fix: Go back to your source data and sort it by the column you're using for the X-axis, from smallest to largest. Your chart will update automatically with a correctly drawn line.

"My line has gaps in it."

Gaps appear when you have blank cells in your data series. By default, Excel stops the line and picks it up again at the next data point.

The Fix: You can tell Excel how to handle empty cells.

• Right-click on your chart and choose Select Data.
• In the bottom-left of the dialog box, click the Hidden and Empty Cells button.
• You'll have three options:
• Select "Connect data points with a line" and click OK twice.

A Note on Trendlines vs. Connecting Dots

It's important not to confuse connecting dots with adding a trendline.

• Connecting Dots shows the actual path the data takes from one point to the next.
• A Trendline is a calculated line of best fit that shows the general statistical trend in your data. It might not pass through any of the actual data points.

To add a trendline, right-click on your data series (the line or the dots) and choose "Add Trendline." Use this for analysis, not for just connecting the existing points.

Final Thoughts

Connecting dots in an Excel chart is all about selecting the right tool for the job. Use a Line Chart for categorical data over time, and use a Scatter with Lines chart for numerical XY data, but always remember to sort your data first. By understanding this distinction, you can avoid messy charts and create clear, insightful visualizations that tell the right story.

Creating professional reports in Excel can often feel manual and repetitive, especially when troubleshooting formatting and connecting different data sets. We built Graphed to simplify this entire process. Instead of navigating menus, you can connect your data sources and just ask in natural language to create a dashboard. You can say things like, “show me sales vs. ad spend this quarter as a scatter plot,” and get a perfect, real-time visualization in seconds, with all the dots connected just right.