Creating Line Charts in Excel

In this section, we're going to go over how to create a basic line chart. Now, when you're selecting the information for creating your line chart, all you have to do is select a single cell within the data. That will get you started.

You will not have to select the entire table. I playfully call this selectophobia—the fear that unless you select the entire table, you won’t be able to chart all the data. Actually, one cell is fine.

Excel is smart enough to be able to pick up all the surrounding cells around the single cell you selected. When you're creating a line chart, you'll use this to show continuous time-series data. Continuous time-series data could take the form of daily stock prices or daily sales.

So, here are the steps for creating a chart. Now, I'll start off by saying they’re actually quite simple. So, I'll go through this methodically so you understand exactly what you'll need to do.

Now, you can start off by thinking that you need to insert a chart into your sheet. So, the tab that you're going to go to is Insert. After you click Insert, you'll need to go to a specific group.

Now, this part may be challenging, but even if you're new to Excel, you should be able to figure this out. We have the Tables group. We have the Illustrations group.

We have the Add-ins group. We have the Tours group. We have Sparklines, and I've skipped the obvious option—Charts.

So, it shouldn't be too difficult, but now you're wondering which icon represents a line chart. There's not too much guesswork involved. You can just hover your mouse over the icons and see what the little tool tip displays when it pops up.

And so, I'll go over to this icon that looks like crisscrossing lines, and that's the line chart. I'll click once, and then I get to choose the type of line chart I want to create. I'll choose from the 2D line options, and if I hover my mouse over the first one, it says Line.

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This is the one I actually need to create. There are some other types. If I hover over this one, it’s a stacked line.

This one is a 100% stacked line, and Line with Markers, and so on. I'm going to go back to Line, and with one click, I've created my chart. And what you should know instantly is that if you look up above in the ribbon tab, we have two new tabs, Chart Design and Format.

Those only display when you're in the chart. If I click outside of the chart, they're gone. Sometimes this presents an issue because I will tell students to please go to the Chart Design tab.

They will say, I don't see one on my ribbon. And then I'll say, have you clicked inside the chart? And they will say no. And then when they do, I'll hear, oh.

So, make sure you're in the chart. That way, you'll see these tabs because Microsoft is not going to make these available to you if you're not in the chart. There would be no use for them.

So, we're going to make three quick design changes to this chart. First, we're going to change the layout. On the Chart Design tab, if you go all the way to the left, just after Add Chart Element, you'll see Quick Layout.

With one click, you'll have many different layout presets that Microsoft offers you to change your chart layout. This is Microsoft's way of saying, leave the layout options to us. You don't have to worry about customizing this yourself.

See if you find something that's as close as possible to what you would like for your chart. I'm going to stick with the first one. Next thing I would like to do is change the colors.

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Well, Microsoft says, hey, right next to Quick Layout, we have Change Colors. You don't have to worry about manually making those changes. You can choose from four colorful options and many more monochromatic ones.

Just hover your mouse over those options and you'll see the colors change in the chart. Okay. You're done with the colors.

I'll go with blue-green, which is the colorful option. Now I want to change the chart styles. I can do that by simply hovering my mouse over the different styles and I can watch the chart update instantly.

This is something you'll be able to do on Windows. On the Mac, you'll actually have to click on each option to see the result of choosing that option. But on the PC, you can just hover.

If I click on this little drop-down triangle, I'll be able to take a look at a couple more options and just hover my mouse over those options there. If I'm feeling in a 1980s kind of mood, maybe I'll go for this dark background with the neon lines. That looks pretty cool.

One click. I can now brag about all the work it took me to come up with that design and all the customizations I needed to make when all I did was actually click on a preset chart style. So that covers the line chart, creating it, and three simple options.