How to Make a Line Chart in Google Sheets

A line chart is one of the most powerful and intuitive ways to see how a metric changes over time. Whether you’re tracking website traffic, monthly sales, or ad campaign performance, a simple line can instantly tell you if things are heading up, down, or staying flat. This guide will walk you through exactly how to create, style, and enhance line charts in Google Sheets to turn your raw data into a clear story.

When and Why to Use a Line Chart

Before jumping into the "how," it's helpful to understand the "why." Line charts are purpose-built for one primary job: displaying a continuous data set. They excel at showing trends, patterns, and fluctuations over a specific interval, which is most often time (days, weeks, months, quarters, or years).

Use a line chart when you want to answer questions like:

• How did our website traffic change last quarter?

• Are our sales growing month-over-month?

• What was the daily temperature fluctuation last week?

• How has the performance of three different ad campaigns compared over the last 30 days?

When Another Chart Type is Better

Line charts aren't a one-size-fits-all solution. If your goal is to compare distinct categories that aren't tied together by time, a bar chart is usually a better choice. For instance, comparing the total sales of three different products for the year. And if you need to show the composition of a whole (like the percentage of traffic from each marketing channel), a pie chart or stacked bar chart is more appropriate.

Step 1: Get Your Data Ready

The foundation of any good chart is clean, well-structured data. For a line chart in Google Sheets, the layout is simple and logical. You'll want your data organized into at least two columns:

• Column A (The X-Axis): This column should contain your continuous data points, typically dates, months, or years. These will be plotted along the horizontal axis.

• Column B (The Y-Axis): This column should contain the corresponding numerical values you want to measure. These will be plotted along the vertical axis.

For example, if you want to chart your blog's monthly sessions, your data might look like this:

If you want to compare multiple data series on the same chart (like traffic from different sources), just add more numeric columns. Google Sheets will automatically interpret each additional numeric column as a new line on the chart.

Make sure your headers are clear and your date/time formats are consistent. Skipping this step is the most common reason for charts not displaying correctly.

Step 2: Create a Basic Line Chart in Google Sheets

Once your data is formatted correctly, creating the chart takes just a few clicks. Google Sheets is quite smart about interpreting data, so it often gets it right on the first try.

1. Select Your Data: Click and drag your cursor to highlight all the cells you want to include in your chart, including the headers.

2. Insert the Chart: Go to the top menu and click Insert > Chart.

3. Review the Default Chart: A new chart will appear on your sheet, along with the Chart editor pane on the right side. If your X-axis column contains dates or time-based text, Google Sheets will almost always default to a line chart because it recognizes you're trying to show a trend.

4. Change the Chart Type (If Needed): If for some reason it suggests a different chart type, you can easily change it. In the Chart editor under the Setup tab, click the dropdown menu under Chart type and select one of the line chart options.

Step 3: Customize Your Chart for a Professional Look

A basic chart gets the job done, but a well-customized chart tells a clearer, more professional story. This is where the Chart editor comes in handy. If you close it by accident, just double-click anywhere on the chart to bring it back up.

The editor is split into two main tabs: Setup (for controlling the data) and Customize (for controlling the appearance).

Chart & Axis Titles

Never leave your audience guessing what they’re looking at. Clear titles are essential.

• Go to the Customize tab and expand the Chart & axis titles section.

• Chart title: Give your chart a descriptive name, like "Monthly Website Traffic from All Sources."

• Horizontal axis title: Label your time axis, for example, "Month" or "Date."

• Vertical axis title: Label your value axis, for example, "Number of Sessions" or "Sales ($)."

Series Customization

This section allows you to control the look and feel of your data lines, which is especially important when you have multiple lines on one chart.

• In the Customize tab, open the Series section.

• Use the dropdown to select which data series you want to edit.

• Color and Thickness: Change the line color to match your branding or to create a clear visual distinction between data sets. You can also adjust the line thickness to make it more prominent.

• Point Shape and Size: You can add markers (circles, triangles, stars) to each data point on the line. This can make the exact value for each period easier to see, though it can also clutter a chart with too many data points.

Legend Position

The legend tells the viewer what each colored line represents. By default, it often appears at the top, but you can move it for better readability.

• In the Customize tab, open the Legend section.

• Under Position, you can choose from None, Top, Bottom, Left, Right, or even have it placed inside the chart. Placing it on the right is a common and clean choice.

Gridlines & Ticks

Gridlines help guide the eye from a point on the line to its value on the axis. Sometimes, the default gridlines are too dense.

• In the Customize tab, expand the Gridlines and ticks section.

• Here, you can adjust the spacing and color of the major gridlines for both the vertical and horizontal axes. Reducing the number of "Major steps" or adding "Minor gridlines" can help with detailed analysis or produce a cleaner look.

Beyond the Basics: Advanced Line Chart Techniques

Once you are comfortable with basic chart creation, you can explore some slightly more advanced features that solve common data visualization challenges.

Adding a Trendline

Sometimes you need to see the bigger picture beyond daily or monthly fluctuations. A trendline adds an extra line to your chart representing the overall direction of your data.

1. In the Chart editor, go to the Customize > Series tab.

2. Scroll down and check the box for Trendline.

3. A new line will appear, smoothing out the volatility and showing the general trajectory of your data over time. You can change its color, thickness, and type (Linear is the most common).

This is particularly useful for noisy data sets, helping you answer the question, "Despite the ups and downs, are we generally heading in the right direction?"

Creating a Dual-Axis Line (or Combo) Chart

What if you want to plot two different metrics on the same chart, but their scales are completely different? For instance, charting the number of website sessions (values in thousands) alongside your conversion rate, which is expressed in small percentages. If you put both on the same Y-axis, your conversion rate line would look like a flat line at the bottom.

The solution is a dual-axis chart, where one metric uses the left vertical axis and the other uses a new right vertical axis.

1. Start by creating a chart with both data series, like sessions and conversion rate.

2. In the Chart editor under Setup, change the Chart type to a Combo chart. This chart type allows you to assign different properties to different data series.

3. Next, go to the Customize > Series tab.

4. In the series dropdown, select the series with the vastly different scale (in this case, conversion rate).

5. In the properties for that series, find the Axis dropdown and select Right axis.

Instantly, Google Sheets will add a new vertical axis on the right side of your chart scaled specifically for your conversion rate data. Now you can easily compare the relationship between your two metrics on a single, easy-to-read chart.

Final Thoughts

There you have it - everything you need to turn raw numbers into a clear, compelling line chart in Google Sheets. From structuring your data correctly to adding advanced features like dual axes and trendlines, you're now equipped to visualize your performance over time and uncover the story hidden inside your data.

While mastering spreadsheets is a valuable skill, we know the real bottleneck is often getting the data ready in the first place. Toggling between Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, Shopify, and your other platforms to manually download and format CSVs is a time drain that delays action. At Graphed, we automate the entire reporting process by connecting directly to your marketing and sales tools. You can create live, interactive dashboards simply by asking for what you want, like "show me website sessions vs. ad spend over the last quarter," and we build it for you with data that's always up-to-date.