How to Make a Line and Scatter Plot with Excel

Chart Studio with Excel

How to Make a Line Graph and a Scatter Plot in Excel

trace 0, trace 2, trace 1

Follow along below to make a mixed line and scatter plot in Chart Studio.

Step 1: Upload your Excel data to Chart Studio’s grid

Open the data file for this tutorial in Excel. You can download the file here in xls or xlsx formats. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 22
Head to the Chart Studio Workspace at https://plot.ly/plot and sign into your free Chart Studio account. Go to "Import," click "Upload a file," then choose your Excel file to upload. Your Excel file will now open in Chart Studio's grid. For more about Chart Studio's grid, see the tutorial: https://plot.ly/add-data-to-the-plotly-grid/ How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 19
Select “Line plot” from the MAKE A PLOT menu. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 02
Click the blue plot button in the sidebar to create the chart. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 13

Step 2: Setting the Traces

Your plot should look something like this. All the traces are line plots with markers. The first step to styling it into the mixed-type graph above is to open the TRACES popover in the toolbar. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 12 How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 11
Here’s how the “Mode” tab of the TRACES popover for “trace 0” should look. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 09
Here’s how the “Mode” tab of the TRACES popover for “trace 1” should look. Notice that we’ve selected the marker without a line option -- this is how you get a scatter plot. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 00
Here’s how the “Mode” tab of the TRACES popover for “trace 2” should look. Notice that we’ve selected the line without marker option. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 10

Step 3: Style it!

Now your plot should look something like this: a mixed line and scatter plot. We still have some styling to do to get the plot at the top of this tutorial! Open TRACES again. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 14
This is how the “Style” tab of the TRACES popover on “trace 0” should look. We’ve smoothed the line, changed the stroke, and made the markers larger. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 05
This is how the “Style” tab of the TRACES popover on “trace 1” should look. We’ve changed the stroke and its weight. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 01
This is how the “Style” tab of the TRACES popover on “trace 2” should look. We’ve changed the shape of the marker and its outline. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 03
This is how the LAYOUT popover should look. We’re giving the plot a grey background. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 17 How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 07
This is how the AXES popover should look. We’re giving the plot white gridlines How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 15
We’re hiding our legend in the LEGEND popover. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 18
You can download your finished Chart Studio graph to embed in your Excel workbook. We also recommend including the Chart Studio link to the graph inside your Excel workbook for easy access to the interactive Chart Studio version. Get the link to your graph by clicking the blue "Share" button. Download an image of your Chart Studio graph by clicking DOWNLOAD on the toolbar. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 23 How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 20
Your finished chart should look something like this. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 04
To add the Excel file to your workbook, click where you want to insert the picture inside Excel. On the INSERT tab inside Excel, in theILLUSTRATIONS group, click PICTURE. Locate the Chart Studio graph image that you downloaded and then double-click it. Notice that we also copy-pasted the Chart Studio graph link in a cell for easy access to the interactive Chart Studio version. How to make a line graph and scatter plot with excel 21