How to Add and Customize a Trendline on a Chart in Google Sheets

With Google Sheets, you can perform tasks involving data entry and data analysis. You can present the as charts and graphs for a better visual perspective than merely numbers. One of the benefits of data visualization is that it helps break down complex data and makes it easier to understand. Using a Trendline on a chart is one of the basic ways to engage data visualization elements in Google Sheets.

When you insert a trendline in Google Sheets, spreadsheet viewers can easily follow movements in the data on a chart. For example, if the data on a chart represents changes in the price of an item over time, a trendline highlights the high and low periods. Here’s how you can add and customize a trendline in Google Sheets.

How to Create a Chart in Google Sheets

The purpose of a trendline is to highlight the patterns in data. Therefore, before you can add a trendline to your Google Sheets file, you need to insert a chart. The chart will visualize the data making it easy to insert a trendline. Here’s how to create a chart in Google Sheets:

Step 1: Open Google Sheets in your preferred web browser.

Open Google Sheets

Step 2: Create a new workbook and enter your dataset for the chart or open an existing workbook with the dataset.

Step 3: Select the cells you would like to include in your chart.

Step 4: Click Insert menu at the top and select Chart from the context menu. This will launch a Chart editor on the right of your spreadsheet.

Step 5: On the chart editor, click the drop-down beneath the Chart type.

Step 6: Select your preferred chart type from the chart editor. You can add trendlines to a bar, line, column, or scatter chart.

How to Add a Trendlline in Google Sheets

After you insert your preferred chart type into Google Sheets, here’s how you can add a trendline to it:

Step 1: Double-click the chart you would like to add the trendline to. That will launch the Chart editor on the right side of your spreadsheet.

Step 2: At the top of the chart editor, click the Customize tab.

Step 3: Select the Series drop-drown.

Step 4: Tick the box beside Trendline. You will see a line appear in your chart.

How to Customize a Trendline in Google Sheets

After adding the trendline to your chart, you can make changes to its appearance to customize how it appears in Google Sheets. Here’s how to do so:

Step 1: Under the Trendline box, you will see Type. Click the drop-down beneath Type to choose your trendline’s form from the following options:

• Linear: best for data that flows in a straight pattern
• Exponential: for data that rises and falls proportional to a value
• Polynomial: for data that has a varied pattern
• Logarithmic: for data that falls or rises and then flattens out
• Power Series: for data that falls or rises proportionally to its current value at a uniform rate.
• Moving Average: for data that is unstable

Step 2: Click the drop-down beneath Line color to choose a trendline color from the palette.

Step 3: Click the drop-down beneath Line opacity to customize the visibility of the trendline on the chart. You can choose from options between 0% to 100% opacity.

Step 4: Click the drop-down beneath Line thickness to customize the thickness of the trendline. You can choose from 1px, 2px, 4px and 8px thickness.

Step 5: Click the Label drop-down to add a label to your trendline. You can choose between a Custom label or an Equation label.

Using Data Validation in Google Sheets

After adding and customizing the trendline in Google Sheets, you can add safeguards to the file to ensure the data used in the chart maintains your preferred form. An example of a useful safeguard is data validation. With data validation, you can restrict the information entered into a cell used for your chart and trendline.