How To Make A Line Graph On Excel 2016

In this tutorial, we will be discussing how to create a basic line graph on Microsoft Excel 2016.

Line graphs are generally used to show trends of a series of data points. It is typically used to show the behavior of a metric / data set over time (week, months year…).

Here are the steps to follow in creating a Line Chart:

1. Highlight the data set you want to see in a Line Chart. See the example below, Range A2:D14 has been selected.

line graph step 1

2. Go to the Insert Tab and Click on the Line Chart drop-down button  in the Charts group and select the first option from the drop-down menu.

line graph step 2

3. You will then see the Line Chart on the sheet. You can resize the chart by clicking and dragging from the 4 corners of the chart. As you can see, the blue line represents Store A, the Orange line represents Store B and the grey line represents Store C.

line graph step 3

4. To change the Chart Title, click on the "Chart Title" and Type "Sales Trend by Month" and press Enter

line graph step 4

For more options to format the graph, double click anywhere on the chart area, a panel will appear on the right-hand side of the sheet. You can play around with the different options available.

Sometimes, you might want to have a combination of Lines and Columns on the graph, to do this, with the graph selected:

A. Go to the Design Tab and click on Change Chart Type. It is located on the far-right-hand side after Select Data. See the image below.

line graph step A

B. In this example, we'd like to represent the data for Store A and Store B as Clustered Columns. In the "Choose the chart type and axis for your data series:" section, change the chart type for Store A and Store B as shown below.

line graph step B

C. For Store C, you could also check the Secondary Axis box, so it does not share the same axis with Store A and Store B because they are Clustered columns and Store C is the only data point represented by a Line graph

line graph step C

D. Click OK.

See the below image for the final chart. As you can see it is a combo of Clustered Columns and Line Graphs.

line graph step D