add linear trend line to graph in excel for mac

Add Linear Trend Line To Graph In Excel How To Add Horizontal
Add Linear Trend Line To Graph In Excel Series For The

Doesnt look very good for the column chart (left) since the horizontal line ends at the centerlines of the first and last column.

The horizontal line may reference some target value or limit, and adding the horizontal line makes it easy to see where values are above and below this reference value.

Add Linear Trend Line To Graph In Excel How To Add Horizontal

This tutorial shows how to add horizontal lines to several common types of Excel chart.

Since they are drawn freehand (or free-mouse), they arent positioned accurately.

Since they are independent of the charts data, they may not move when the data changes.

And sometimes they just seem to move whenever they feel like it.

We have to format the axis and type 6 into the box for Maximum.

We probably also want to remove the markers from our horizontal line.

If you copy a range and use the right click menu on a chart, the only option is a regular Paste, and Excel doesnt always correctly guess how it should paste the data.

Add Linear Trend Line To Graph In Excel Series For The

Partly its complicated because we will be making a combination chart, with columns, lines, or areas for our data along with an XY Scatter type series for the horizontal line.

Partly its complicated because the category (X) axis of most Excel charts is not a value axis.

The Y values are easy, but the X values require a little understanding of how Excels category axes work.

This is because column and line charts use a default setting of Between Tick Marks for the Axis Position property.

We can change the Axis Position to On Tick Marks, below, and the first and last category labels line up with the ends of the category axis.

The line chart looks okay, but we have cut off the outer halves of the first and last columns.

Excel doesnt recognize these categories as numerical values, but we can think of them as labeling the categories with numbers.

Not only do we have halfway points between the categories, we also have a half category label below the first category and another after the last category.

This would be wrong for a column chart, but might be acceptable for a line chart.

Weve added another set of columns or another line to the chart.

Were using markers to temporarily mark the ends of the line, and well remove the markers later; in general we will change directly to XY Scatter With Straight Lines.

We could rescale the secondary axes, then hide them, but that makes a complicated situation even more complicated.

And many charts with horizontal lines use exactly this approach.

I call it the lazy approach, because its easier, but it provides a line that doesnt extend beyond all the data to the sides of the chart.

You get a column chart with a second set of columns, or a line chart with a second line.

Add Linear Trend Line To Graph In Excel For Mac