How to Make a Single Line Graph in Excel

Creating a simple line graph is one of the fastest ways to spot trends in your data, but staring at a spreadsheet can feel intimidating. This guide cuts through the noise and shows you exactly how to turn your raw numbers into a clear, compelling line graph in Microsoft Excel. We’ll cover everything from structuring your data correctly to customizing your chart to look professional and presentation-ready.

When to Use a Line Graph

Before we jump into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." Line graphs are the undisputed champions of visualizing data over a continuous period. Their primary job is to show a trend and connect individual data points to reveal how something has changed over time.

They are the perfect choice for tracking metrics like:

• Monthly sales revenue over a fiscal year
• Daily website traffic from a marketing campaign
• Weekly changes in social media followers
• Quarterly customer acquisition costs
• Year-over-year growth rates

While a bar chart is great for comparing distinct categories (like sales per product), and a pie chart is for showing parts of a whole (like traffic sources), a line graph excels at telling a story about progression, growth, or decline. If your data points are connected in a sequence, a line graph is almost always the right tool for the job.

Step 1: Get Your Data Ready

The secret to a perfect Excel graph is perfectly organized data. Before you click a single button in the charting menu, take a minute to make sure your spreadsheet is set up for success. This will save you a world of headaches later on.

For a single line graph, your data should be arranged in two simple columns:

• Column 1 (Your X-Axis): This column should contain your time intervals - like days, weeks, months, quarters, or years. These are the evenly spaced points in time that your data was measured at.
• Column 2 (Your Y-Axis): This column holds the numerical values you want to track over time. This could be anything from sales figures and user counts to temperatures or expenses.

It’s also crucial to give each column a clear header. These headers will help Excel automatically label your chart's axes and legend, saving you manual work.

Here’s an example of a clean data structure for tracking monthly website visitors:

Crucial Data Formatting Tips:

• Check for Consistency: Ensure your time intervals are consistent (e.g., all months, all days). Mixing "January" with "Week 5" in the same column will confuse Excel.
• Use Number Formatting: Make sure the values in your second column are formatted as numbers, not text. A number stored as text won't plot correctly. You can check this by selecting the column, right-clicking, choosing "Format Cells," and ensuring "Number" or "Currency" is selected.
• Mind the Gaps: Empty cells in your data will create breaks or gaps in your line chart. We’ll cover how to handle these later, but for now, try to ensure your data series is complete.

Step 2: Creating Your Basic Line Graph in Excel

With your data neatly organized, creating the graph itself takes less than 30 seconds. We'll use our "Monthly Website Visitors" example from above.

1. Select Your Data: Click on the first cell of your data set (in our example, the header "Month") and drag your mouse to highlight all the cells containing data, including both headers.
2. Navigate to the Insert Tab: Look at the ribbon at the top of the Excel window and click on the "Insert" tab.
3. Find the Charts Group: In the middle of the Insert ribbon, you’ll see a section called "Charts."
4. Choose the Line Chart Icon: Click the icon that looks like a small line graph. Its official name is "Insert Line or Area Chart."
5. Select "2-D Line": A dropdown menu will appear with several chart options. Under the "2-D Line" heading, click the very first option, which is the standard line graph.

And that’s it! Excel will instantly generate and place a basic line graph onto your worksheet. You will see your months plotted along the bottom (horizontal axis) and the visitor numbers plotted along the side (vertical axis), connected by a single line.

Step 3: Customizing Your Graph for Clarity and Impact

The default chart Excel creates is functional, but a few simple tweaks can transform it from a basic plot into a professional-looking visual that's easy for anyone to understand.

When you click on your new chart, two new tabs ("Chart Design" and "Format") will appear on the top ribbon. You'll also see a small plus sign (+) icon appear to the right of the chart. This icon is your control center for chart elements.

Add a Clear Chart Title

Every chart needs a title. Don't make your audience guess what they're looking at. Double-click the "Chart Title" placeholder text at the top of the chart and type in something descriptive. For our example, a good title would be "2023 Monthly Website Visitors."

Label Your Axes

While Excel often gets the axes right if your headers are clear, it sometimes leaves them unlabeled. A Y-axis that's just a set of numbers is meaningless. To add labels:

1. Click your chart to select it.
2. Click the plus sign (+) icon for "Chart Elements."
3. Check the box next to "Axis Titles."

Placeholder text boxes will appear. Click on each one and label them appropriately, such as "Month" for the horizontal axis and "Number of Visitors" for the vertical axis.

Adjust the Line and Markers

You can customize the appearance of the line and the data points (called markers) to match your brand colors or simply make them stand out.

• Right-click directly on the line in your chart.
• Choose "Format Data Series" from the context menu.
• A pane will open on the right side of your screen. Click the Paint Bucket icon ("Fill & Line").

Advanced Tips for Your Excel Line Graph

Once you’ve mastered the basics, here are a few extra tips to take your line graphs to the next level.

Add Data Labels for Precision

Sometimes you want viewers to see the exact value of each point without hovering their mouse or guessing based on the axis. Data labels are perfect for this.

Click your chart, press the (+) icon, and check the box for "Data Labels." You can click the arrow next to it to customize their position (Above, Below, Centered, etc.) to keep your chart from looking cluttered.

Show the Bigger Picture with a Trendline

Your data may have monthly ups and downs, but what’s the overall direction? A trendline helps answer that question by drawing a straight line that best fits your data's general trajectory.

Click your chart, press the (+) icon, and check the box for "Trendline." Excel automatically adds a linear trendline, giving you a quick visual summary of whether your numbers are heading up, down, or staying flat over the period.

Handling Missing Data Gracefully

What happens if your data for a month is missing? By default, Excel will show an ugly gap in your line. You can change this behavior.

1. Right-click the chart and choose "Select Data...".
2. In the dialog box that appears, click the "Hidden and Empty Cells" button in the bottom-left corner.
3. You’ll be given three choices for how to display empty cells:

Final Thoughts

Creating a single line graph in Excel is a straightforward process when you know the steps. By properly organizing your data in two columns and using the "Insert Chart" functionality, you can instantly turn sets of numbers into a clear visual story that reveals trends over time. With a few key customizations, that simple chart becomes a valuable and professional tool for reporting and analysis.

While Excel is a powerful tool for building charts by hand, we know that the most time-consuming part of reporting is often pulling and organizing data from multiple sources like Google Ads, Shopify, or your CRM. At Graphed, we connect directly to these platforms so you can skip the manual export/import cycle. You can simply ask for a chart like, "show me a line graph of our monthly revenue from Shopify this year," and get a live, automated dashboard in seconds, freeing you up to focus on the insights, not the prep work.