How to Make a Chart in Google Sheets

Turning a spreadsheet of raw numbers into a clear, understandable chart can feel like a superpower. Suddenly, trends, comparisons, and outliers jump off the page. This guide will walk you through exactly how to create, customize, and share beautiful charts directly in Google Sheets, step-by-step.

Getting Started: Your First Chart in Google Sheets

Creating a basic chart involves just a few clicks. The real magic comes from preparing your data correctly and choosing the right chart to tell your story. Let’s start with the fundamentals.

Step 1: Prepare Your Data

This is the most important step. Your chart will only be as good as the data feeding it. For best results, organize your data in a simple, logical format:

• Use Headers: Put clear labels in the first row of your data. Google Sheets will use these for your chart legends and axis labels (e.g., "Month," "Website Visitors," "New Sales").

• Keep it Clean: Arrange your data in columns. Typically, the first column contains your labels (like dates, categories, or product names), and the subsequent columns contain the numerical values you want to visualize.

Imagine you're tracking monthly blog traffic. Your data should look like this:

Putting "Month" in one column and "Visitors" in the next creates a clear relationship that Google Sheets can easily understand.

Step 2: Select Your Data Range

Click and drag your mouse to highlight all the cells you want to include in your chart. In our example, you would highlight the range from the "Month" header to the last number under "New Subscribers." Don't just select the numbers, including the headers allows Google Sheets to automatically label everything for you.

Step 3: Insert Your Chart

With your data highlighted, navigate to the main menu at the top of the screen and click Insert > Chart. Google Sheets will instantly analyze your data and create what it thinks is the best chart for your selection. A Chart Editor pane will also appear on the right side of your screen, which is where all the customization happens.

Choosing the Right Chart for Your Data

Google Sheets often makes a good initial guess, but you have full control. The "Chart type" dropdown in the Chart Editor is your command center for visualization. Choosing the right one is essential for communicating your message clearly.

When to Use a Line Chart

A line chart is perfect for showing trends over time. If your horizontal axis is made up of dates – days, weeks, months, or years – a line chart is almost always the best choice.

• Best for: Tracking progress, seeing growth or decline, visualizing time-series data.

• Example: Showing website traffic month-over-month, tracking stock prices, or monitoring sales totals per quarter.

When to Use a Column or Bar Chart

Column and bar charts are excellent for comparing different categories. They make it easy to see which category is bigger or smaller than the others.

• Best for: Comparing distinct categories, ranking items, or showing parts of a whole where you have a handful of categories.

• Example: Comparing sales figures for different products, showing marketing channel performance (e.g., visits from Organic Search vs. Social Media vs. a PPC campaign), or looking at survey responses.

Tip: Use a column chart (vertical bars) when you have fewer categories and a bar chart (horizontal bars) when your category labels are long and need more space to be readable.

When (and How) to Use a Pie Chart

Pie charts show parts of a whole, representing data in percentages. They are one of the most misused chart types. Only use a pie chart when:

1. Your data adds up to 100%.

2. You have six or fewer categories. Any more and the chart becomes cluttered and impossible to read.

• Best for: Showing the composition or "market share" of something.

• Example: Percentage of web traffic from different devices (Mobile vs. Desktop), breakdown of a budget by department, or types of customers (New vs. Returning).

When to Use a Scatter Plot

A scatter plot helps you see the relationship between two different numerical variables. It's used to identify correlations or patterns in your data.

• Best for: Identifying relationships between two sets of numbers.

• Example: Plotting advertising spend vs. revenue to see if more ad spend leads to more revenue, or comparing a student's hours studied vs. their final exam score.

Customizing Your Chart for Impact and Clarity

A default chart is good, but a well-customized chart is great. The Chart Editor, which appears when you double-click your chart, has two main tabs: Setup and Customize. The Customize tab is where you can refine its appearance.

Chart & Axis Titles

A chart without a title is meaningless. Be specific!

1. Click the Customize tab in the Chart Editor.

2. Expand the Chart & axis titles section.

3. Chart title: Replace the generic title (like "Visitors and New Subscribers") with something descriptive, such as "Monthly Blog Performance."

4. Horizontal and Vertical axis titles: Label your axes if they aren’t clear. For instance, you could label the vertical axis "Number of Visitors" to add context.

Series

The "Series" section lets you control the look of your actual data points (the bars, lines, or pie slices). For example, in a line chart comparing "Visitors" and "New Subscribers," you can change the color of each line to match your company's branding.

You can also add helpful features like:

• Data labels: Displays the value of each data point directly on the chart, so your viewers don't have to guess.

• Trendline: Adds a line that shows the general direction or trend of your data, which is great for seeing overall growth.

Legend

The legend explains what each color or symbol on your chart represents. Under the Legend section, you can change its position (top, bottom, right, etc.) or remove it entirely if your chart only has one data series.

Horizontal/Vertical Axis

This section gives you precise control over your axes. You can set minimum and maximum values to adjust the scale of your chart. For example, if your sales numbers range from $1,000,000 to $1,050,000, starting the vertical axis at $0 will make the fluctuations look tiny. Starting it at $950,000 will make the changes much more visible.

Gridlines and Ticks

Here you can add or remove background gridlines. Adding major gridlines can make it easier for people to trace a data point back to its value on an axis. You can also adjust their color to be less intrusive, making the data itself stand out more.

Final Finishing Touches

Once your chart is styled, you can move and resize it by just clicking and dragging. To use it outside of Google Sheets, click the three vertical dots in the top-right corner of the chart. From here you can:

• Download: Save it as an image (PNG) or PDF to use in presentations or documents.

• Copy chart: Copy it to your clipboard to paste directly into a Google Doc or Slide.

• Publish chart: Generate a link to a live version of the chart or get an embed code to place on a website. This is incredibly powerful because if you update the data in your spreadsheet, the published chart will update automatically.

Final Thoughts

Learning to create charts in Google Sheets is a fundamental skill for anyone working with data. It transforms rows of lifeless numbers into compelling visual stories that can drive better decisions, highlight wins, and spot potential problems before they escalate.

While mastering spreadsheets is useful, the real bottleneck often appears when your data is scattered across different platforms like Google Analytics, Shopify, Facebook Ads, and your CRM. Pulling it all together into one sheet feels like a constant battle. That’s why we built Graphed to automate that entire process. We connect directly to all your favorite marketing and sales tools, so instead of manually creating charts, you can just ask questions in plain English and get real-time dashboards that update themselves automatically in seconds.