How to Add a Trendline in Google Sheets Charts

Google Sheets is a powerful tool with many exceptional functionalities. Using Google Sheets, users can create, edit and share their spreadsheets online. What’s even more amazing about this spreadsheet is the ability to create charts and graphs, making it a brilliant tool for data visualization.

To make it seamless for users to analyze trends in Google Sheets, Google Sheets has a trend functionality you can add to your charts. In today’s guide, we will show you how to add a trendline in Google Sheets charts.

But before we jump into the nitty-gritty of adding a trendline in Google Sheets charts, let’s start with the basics- understanding trendline.

What is a trendline?

Trendlines are a critical component of data visualization. When a trendline is added to your chart, it’s easy to spot trends in your data. Trendlines are commonly used in economics and finance. While they help you identify patterns quickly, they can also be used to predict future trends.

What is impressive about trendlines is that they can be incorporated into any type of Chart in Google Sheets, including line charts, scatter charts, and even bar charts.

Why should you use a trendline in your Google Sheets charts?

Are you wondering why adding a trendline to your Google Sheets charts is super important? Read on as we break things down.

If you want to visualize and analyze trends in your data more efficiently, adding a trendline to your Google Sheets charts is one way to go about it.

Let’s assume you have data relating to sales made over time; adding a trendline to this type of data will help you know if sales are increasing or declining. Let us also quickly add that trendlines are a remarkable tool for making predictions.

Adding a trendline in Google Sheets Charts

Having given you some basics about trendlines and why you should use one in your Google Sheets charts, let’s quickly show you how you can add a trendline in Google Sheets charts. For this tutorial, we will be using the following sample data.

Note: Before you can add a trendline in Google Sheets charts, you first need to create a chart. For those who have no idea how to do this, here is how to create a chart in Google Sheets

Step 1: Select the data in the table

The first thing you want to do is highlight the data in your spreadsheet. This should take only a couple of clicks.

Step 2: Insert > Chart

After highlighting the data, you’d like to use to create a chart, head to the Insert menu and select Chart. Google Sheets will automatically add a chart to your spreadsheet.

If you followed the steps outlined above, you should have a chart in your spreadsheet that looks exactly like this:

From the image above, you’ll notice that Google Sheets automatically created a line chart based on the data we have on our spreadsheet. This is great for finding a trend relationship as regards the data we are working with.

Adding a trendline in Google Sheets.

Now that we have shown you how to create a chart in Google Sheets, let’s give you a walkthrough on how to add a trendline in Google Sheets charts.

Step 1: Open the chart editor

To access the Chart editor, click anywhere on your chart. Navigate to the three dots on the top right corner of the chart. Click on it and select the option for “Edit chart.” This action will automatically launch the Chart editor.

Step 2: Customize > Series

On the Chart editor, select the Customize tab. From the dropdown menu that pops up, choose Series. Here is a short video demonstration showing you exactly how to go about it:

Step 3: Tick the box for Trendline

After selecting Series, you’ll notice a list of options underneath that. Navigate all the way down and tick the box next to Trendline.

If you did everything right, your line chart should be automatically updated to look like this:

From the image above, you can see the nice trendline added to our line chart.

Tweaking the trendline

If you don’t like how the trendline in your chart looks, you can always customize it via the options under the trendline. From changing the type of line to changing the trendline color to changing line opacity and thickness, there is so much you can do to make your trendline stand out.

With the different options for customizing trendlines, you can select either the linear, exponential, or logarithmic function, depending on what works best for you. Also, you have the option to show the R2 value, which is excellent for finding a correlation between the data points and the trendline.

While we won’t go into the nitty gritty of showing you how to tweak the trendlines, feel free to experiment with the different customization options to find what’s best for your data. Tweaking your trendline is a brilliant way to see how the different trend options impact your chart.

Frequently asked questions about trendlines in Google Sheets charts

Can I add multiple trendlines to Google Sheets charts?

Yes, it’s possible to add multiple trendlines to the chart. However, it depends on the type of data you’re working with. If you have different data in your spreadsheet and you intend to find trends and correlations based on such data, adding multiple trendlines wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Is it possible to change the color of a trendline?

Google Sheets allows you to customize the trendline color in your chart. To make these changes, head to the Customize tab of your Chart editor and select Series. Navigate all the way down to find the options for trendlines. Click on the “Line color” option and choose your preferred color. It’s honestly that easy.

Here is a short video demo showing you how to execute these steps:

If we applied this to our sample chart, here is what it should look like:

From the image above, you’ll notice our trendline is now yellow in color.

Can I remove a trendline from a chart?

Removing a trendline from a chart is super easy. You can simply click on it on your chart and press the delete key. Alternatively, you can untick the box next to the option for Trendline in the Chart editor.

Conclusion

Adding a trendline in Google Sheets charts makes it easy to analyze trends in your data. From analyzing trends in your data to making predictions about the future, there is so much you can achieve through adding a trendline in Google Sheets charts.

In today’s guide, we showed you a comprehensive step-by-step process of adding a trendline in Google Sheets Charts. We also showed you how to create a chart in Google Sheets, which is the very first thing you need to do before creating a trendline in Google Sheets charts.

Whether you are analyzing website traffic, sales data, monthly returns, or any other type of data, adding a trendline to your chart will help you spot patterns, which will ultimately help you to make an informed decision.

We hope today’s guide has shown you how easy adding a trendline in Google Sheets charts is.