How to Combine Charts in Google Sheets

Putting two or more charts side-by-side in Google Sheets can turn a simple spreadsheet into a powerful dashboard, allowing you to compare different datasets at a single glance. In this tutorial, we'll cover the straightforward methods for combining and arranging charts so you can build more effective reports directly within your sheet.

Why Combine Charts in Google Sheets?

Before jumping into the how-to, let's quickly touch on why this is such a useful skill. Placing charts together transforms your raw data into a narrative. Instead of just showing numbers, you're presenting a clear, comparative story.

• Build a Mini-Dashboard: Arrange key metrics like website traffic, sales figures, and conversion rates on a single sheet. This gives you a high-level "cockpit" view of your business performance without needing specialized BI tools.
• Compare Different Data Sets: Want to see how your marketing ad spend correlates with new signups? You can put a chart showing monthly ad spend right next to a chart showing new user growth to visually spot connections.
• Consolidate Information for Reports: When you're preparing a weekly or monthly summary, having all your relevant visuals in one clean place makes your report easier to understand and share with your team or stakeholders.

Method 1: Creating a Combo Chart with Multiple Data Series

The truest way to "combine" charts in Google Sheets is by using a combo chart. This feature lets you plot multiple data series on a single chart, often sharing the same horizontal (X) axis but using different vertical (Y) axes. It's perfect when you want to compare two different types of data over the same period, like revenue (in dollars) and units sold (a number).

Step 1: Structure Your Data Correctly

The most important step for a successful combo chart is setting up your data ranges logically. You need one column for your shared label (like month, date, or category) and subsequent columns for each numerical data series you want to plot.

Let's use an example. Imagine you want to track monthly ad spend versus the number of leads generated. Your data should look like this:

Here, 'Month' is our common X-axis, while 'Ad Spend' and 'Leads' are the two Y-axis series we want to visualize together.

Step 2: Insert and Customize the Combo Chart

Once your data is ready, creating the chart is simple.

1. Highlight the entire data range, including the headers (from A1 to C6 in our example).
2. Go to the main menu and click Insert > Chart.
3. Google Sheets will likely guess a chart type for you. In the Chart editor panel that appears on the right, navigate to the Setup tab and find the 'Chart type' selector.
4. Scroll down until you find and select Combo chart. Immediately, you'll see one series as columns and the other as a line.

Your chart is created, but now it's time to fine-tune it. This is where you can make it truly useful, especially when dealing with data on different scales (like dollars and simple counts).

Step 3: Assign Different Axes for Clarity

In our example, ad spend is in the thousands of dollars, while leads are in the hundreds. Plotting them on the same left-hand Y-axis would squash the 'Leads' line near the bottom, making it hard to read. We can fix this by assigning a different axis to each series.

1. In the Chart editor, click over to the Customize tab.
2. Expand the Series section. Here you can control how each data set appears.
3. By default, it will be set for 'Ad Spend'. You can change its color or type if needed. Let's leave it as columns targeted for the Left axis.
4. Now, use the 'Apply to all series' dropdown and select your second data series ('Leads').
5. Change its display 'Type' to Line for visual contrast.
6. Underneath, change the 'Axis' dropdown from Left axis to Right axis.

Instantly, a new axis for 'Leads' appears on the right side of your chart. Now both series are plotted in a way that makes their individual trends crystal clear, allowing you to easily see how one might influence the other.

Method 2: Building a Dashboard Sheet by Stacking Charts

Sometimes, a combo chart isn't what you need. You may want to show two entirely separate visuals—like a pie chart showing traffic sources and a line chart of user sessions over time—next to each other. The best way to do this is by creating a dedicated Dashboard sheet.

This approach involves creating your charts individually and then copying them onto a clean, new sheet meant only for display.

Step 1: Create Your Individual Charts

First, go to your data sources and create each chart just as you normally would. For example, on a sheet with your Google Analytics data, create a time series line chart for user sessions. On another sheet with CRM data, create a bar chart showing leads by source.

You can create as many charts as you need for your dashboard. Don't worry about where they are located initially.

Step 2: Create a Dedicated Dashboard Sheet

To keep things organized, create a brand-new, empty sheet in your workbook. Click the "+" icon on the bottom left of your screen to add a new sheet, and rename it something intuitive like Dashboard, Summary, or Monthly Report.

Step 3: Copy, Paste, and Link Your Charts

Now it's time to assemble your dashboard.

1. Go to your first chart. Click on the three vertical dots in the top-right corner of the chart container.
2. Select Copy chart.
3. Navigate to your empty Dashboard sheet.
4. Right-click on any cell where you'd like to place the chart and select Paste.
5. A pop-up will appear asking if you want to Link to spreadsheet or Paste unlinked. Always choose Link to spreadsheet. This ensures that when your original data changes, the chart on your dashboard will update automatically.

Repeat this process for every chart you want on your dashboard. Once all your charts are on the same sheet, you can click and drag them, resize their containers, and align them neatly to create a professional-looking report.

Method 3: The 'Publish and Embed' Trick for Static Reports

This final method is a bit of a workaround and is best suited for scenarios where you need a quick, static image of your combined charts, perhaps for a presentation or a PDF report that doesn't need to be updated.

It involves publishing each chart as an image and then inserting those images into a sheet.

Here’s how it works:

1. Click on the first chart you want to use.
2. Click the three vertical dots in the top right and select Publish chart.
3. In the pop-up window, select the Image tab.
4. Click the blue Publish button. It will ask for confirmation.
5. Google will generate a URL for the chart image. Copy this URL.
6. Go to your new sheet, click on a cell, and then go to the menu: Insert > Image > Insert image by URL.
7. Paste the URL you copied, and your chart image will appear. It’s no longer an interactive chart, just a picture.
8. Repeat this for your second chart and position the resulting image next to the first one.

The big downside here is that these images are not dynamic. If your underlying data changes, the images will not update. You'd have to go through the publication process again. Therefore, only use this method for one-off, static reports.

Tips for Better-Combined Charts

• Keep Your Layout Clean: Use the gridlines to help you align your charts. A neat, organized layout is much easier to read than a messy one. You can even hide the gridlines on your dashboard sheet (View > Show > Gridlines) for a cleaner background.
• Use Consistent Colors and Styles: Try to use a consistent color palette and font style across all charts on your dashboard. This makes the entire report feel cohesive and professional.
• Label Everything Clearly: Make sure every chart has a clear title, and every axis is labeled correctly. Someone should be able to understand what they're looking at without having to ask you for an explanation.
• Don’t Overcrowd the View: Just because you can put ten charts on a dashboard doesn't mean you should. Focus on the most important metrics and give each visual some breathing room to make your dashboard easy to digest.

Final Thoughts

Learning how to combine and arrange charts is a fantastic way to elevate your reporting skills in Google Sheets. You can use a combo chart to show relationships between different data types, or you can build a full-fledged dashboard by stacking multiple dynamic charts on a single sheet, giving you a powerful, at-a-glance view of your most important information.

While creating these dashboards in Google Sheets is a great skill, the process of manually exporting data from other platforms, organizing it in spreadsheets, and building each chart one by one can still be quite time-consuming. We created Graphed because we wanted to eliminate that friction. Instead of spending hours pulling reports, you can connect your data sources (like Google Analytics, HubSpot, or Shopify) just once, and then use simple, plain English to build entire dashboards in seconds, freeing you up to focus on the insights, not the setup.