How to Do a Line Graph in Excel

Creating a line graph in Excel is one of the fastest ways to spot trends, patterns, and outliers in your data. It turns rows of numbers into a clear visual story, making it easy to see how things have changed over time. This guide will walk you through a simple, step-by-step process for creating, customizing, and reading line graphs in Excel.

What Exactly is a Line Graph, and When Should I Use One?

A line graph, also known as a line chart, connects a series of data points with a continuous line. It's the go-to chart for tracking changes over a period of time. Think of it as a way to visualize the highs and lows of a particular metric as it moves through days, weeks, months, or years.

While a bar chart is great for comparing distinct categories (like total sales per country), a line graph excels at showing trends. It's the perfect choice when you want to answer questions like:

• Did our website traffic increase or decrease last quarter?
• How have our monthly sales figures performed this year compared to last year?
• Are support ticket volumes going up or down over time?
• What was the daily fluctuation in our stock price over the past 30 days?

If your goal is to showcase performance over a continuous scale like time, a line graph is almost always the right tool for the job.

Part 1: Preparing Your Data for an Excel Line Graph

Before you can build a graph, you need to make sure your data is structured correctly. A clean and organized table is the foundation of a good chart. For a line graph, your data should be arranged in columns.

At a minimum, you need two columns:

• Column 1 (The Horizontal X-axis): This column contains your time intervals. It could be dates, months, quarters, or years. This is your independent variable - the consistent scale you are measuring against.
• Column 2 (The Vertical Y-axis): This column contains the numeric data you want to track. These are your metrics, such as sales figures, user counts, or website visits. This is your dependent variable - its value changes over the time interval.

Here's a simple example of how your data should look:

Quick Tips for Clean Data

A few minutes spent cleaning up your spreadsheet can save a lot of headaches later:

• Consistent Labels: Make sure your column headers are simple and clear.
• Proper Formatting: Ensure your time-based column is formatted as a "Date" and your numeric column is formatted as "Number" or "Currency." To do this, right-click the column, select "Format Cells," and choose the appropriate category.
• No Empty Cells: Check for and fill in any blank cells in your data range. Gaps can cause your line to break unexpectedly, though there's a fix for this later.

Part 2: Creating Your Basic Line Graph Step-by-Step

Once your data is prepped, creating the graph itself takes less than a minute. Let's use our sample revenue data from above.

Step 1: Select Your Data

Click and drag your mouse to highlight all the cells containing the data you want to graph. Be sure to include the column headers ("Month" and "Revenue ($)"). Including the headers tells Excel what to label the different parts of your chart.

Step 2: Insert the Chart

With your data selected, navigate to the Insert tab on the Excel ribbon. In the "Charts" section, look for an icon that looks like a small line graph. This is the Insert Line or Area Chart button.

Click on this icon, and a dropdown menu will appear with several chart options under the "2-D Line" and "3-D Line" categories. For most business reporting, a standard "Line" or "Line with Markers" chart is the best choice. Markers are the dots that represent each data point, which can make the chart easier to read.

Step 3: Review Your New Chart

And that's it! Excel will instantly place a basic line graph onto your worksheet. You’ll see your revenue figures plotted on the vertical y-axis and the months running along the horizontal x-axis. Excel automatically adds a default chart title based on your data headers.

Comparing Multiple Data Series on One Graph

Line graphs become even more powerful when you compare multiple data sets. For example, what if you wanted to track the performance of two different products over the same period? It’s just as easy.

Simply structure your data with additional columns for each new series. Keep the first column as your time interval.

Then, repeat the process: select all three columns, go to Insert > Line Chart, and pick your preferred style. Excel will automatically generate a chart with two distinct lines and create a legend to identify which line corresponds to which product.

Part 3: Making Your Line Graph Look Professional

The default Excel chart is a good start, but a few formatting tweaks can dramatically improve its clarity and impact. When you click on your chart, two new tabs will appear on the ribbon: Chart Design and Format. These are your main tools for customization.

Editing Titles and Adding Axis Labels

Your chart needs a clear, descriptive title. Simply click on the default "Chart Title" text box and type your own. It's also good practice to label your axes so everyone knows what they're looking at. To do this:

1. Click on your chart to select it.
2. Click the green "+" icon that appears on the top-right corner.
3. Check the box for Axis Titles.
4. New text boxes will appear on your chart. Click them to edit the titles for your horizontal and vertical axes (e.g., "Month" and "Sales in USD").

Changing the Look of Your Lines and Markers

You can customize every part of your lines. Right-click on one of the data lines and select Format Data Series. A pane will open on the right with a wide range of options.

• Under the "Fill & Line" (paint bucket) icon, you can change the line color, thickness (width), and style (e.g., a dashed line).
• Under the "Marker" sub-section, you can change the shape of the data points, their size, and fill color. This is helpful for making different lines in a multi-line graph visually distinct.
• You can even check a "Smoothed line" box at the bottom to change the sharp angles to gentle curves.

Adding a Trendline or Data Labels

Using the same green "+" menu, you can add other useful elements:

• Data Labels: Check this option to display the exact numerical value next to each data point on the line. This saves your audience from having to estimate values from the axis.
• Trendline: This adds a straight line that shows the general direction or trend of your data. It's a great feature for instantly seeing if your numbers are generally increasing, decreasing, or staying flat over time.

Troubleshooting Common Excel Line Graph Problems

Sometimes Excel charts don't come out exactly as planned. Here are fixes for a couple of frequent issues.

The numbers are on the wrong axis.

Occasionally, Excel gets confused and plots your time data on the vertical axis and your numbers on the horizontal axis. Don't worry, this is an easy fix.

Click on the chart, go to the Chart Design tab, and click the Switch Row/Column button. Excel will swap the axes instantly.

My line has a gap in it from a missing data point.

If you have an empty cell in your data, Excel will show it as a gap in your line. To connect the dots across that gap:

1. Right-click on your chart and choose "Select Data."
2. In the dialog box that pops up, click the button labeled "Hidden and Empty Cells" in the bottom-left corner.
3. A new window will appear. Select the option that says "Connect data points with line" and click OK.

This tells Excel to ignore the blank and draw a straight line between the points before and after the missing entry.

Final Thoughts

Building a line graph in Excel is a fundamental skill for anyone working with data. By properly organizing your information and following a few simple steps, you can quickly turn static spreadsheets into dynamic visuals that effectively communicate trends and performance over time.

Creating these charts in Excel works perfectly, but the process can become tedious when you're manually pulling and updating data from multiple sources like Google Analytics, Shopify, or your CRM every week. We built Graphed to automate this entire reporting drudgery. You directly connect your data sources to our platform and can build live, updating dashboards just by asking in simple English - like "show me my monthly revenue trended over the last year." This way, your reports are always up-to-date, saving you hours of manual work and helping you get to the insights faster.