How to Work with Trendlines in Microsoft Excel Charts
You can add a trendline to a chart in Excel to show the general pattern of data over time. You can also extend trendlines to forecast future data. Excel makes it easy to do all of this.
A trendline (or line of best fit) is a straight or curved line which visualizes the general direction of the values. They’re typically used to show a trend over time.
In this article, we’ll cover how to add different trendlines, format them, and extend them for future data.
Add a Trendline
You can add a trendline to an Excel chart in just a few clicks. Let’s add a trendline to a line graph.
Select the chart, click the “Chart Elements” button, and then click the “Trendline” checkbox.
This adds the default Linear trendline to the chart.