This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Nicole Levine, MFA. Nicole Levine is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. She has more than 20 years of experience creating technical documentation and leading support teams at major web hosting and software companies. Nicole also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Portland State University and teaches composition, fiction-writing, and zine-making at various institutions.
This article has been viewed 44,940 times.
Learn more...
This wikiHow teaches you how to create a line of best fit in your Microsoft Excel chart. A line of best fit, also known as a best fit line or trendline, is a straight line used to indicate a trending pattern on a scatter chart. If you were to create this type of line by hand, you'd need to use a complicated formula. Fortunately, Excel makes it easy to find an accurate trend line by doing the calculations for you.
Steps
-
1Highlight the data you want to analyze. The data you select will be used to create your scatter chart. A scatter chart is one that uses dots to represent values for two different numeric values (X and Y).
-
2Click the Insert tab. It's at the top of Excel.Advertisement
-
3Click the Scatter icon on the Charts panel. It's in the toolbar at the top of the screen. The icon looks like several small blue and yellow squares—when you hover the mouse cursor over this icon, you should see "Insert Scatter (X, Y)" or Bubble Chart (the exact wording varies by version).[1] A list of different chart types will appear.
-
4Click the first Scatter chart option. It's the chart icon at the top-left corner of the menu. This creates a chart based on the selected data.
-
5Right-click one of the data points on your chart. This can be any of the blue dots on the chart. This selects all of the data points at once and expands a menu.
- If you are using a Mac and don't have a right mouse button, hold down the Ctrl button as you click a dot instead.
-
6Click Add Trendline on the menu. Now you'll see the Format Trendline panel on the right side of Excel.
-
7Select Linear from the Trendline Options. It's the second option in the Format Trendline panel. You should now see a linear straight line that reflects the trend of your data.
-
8Check the box next to "Display equation on chart." It's toward the bottom of the Format Trendline panel. This displays the math calculations used to create the best fit line. This step is optional, but can be useful for anyone viewing your chart who wants to understand how the best fit line was calculated.
- Click the X at the top-right corner of the Format Trendline panel to close it.
References
About This Article
1. Highlight the data for your chart.
2. Click the Insert tab.
3. Click the Scatter icon.
4. Click the first Scatter chart.
5. Right-click one of the data points on the chart.
6. Click Add Trendline.
7. Select "Linear."
8. Check the box next to "Display equation on chart."
