How to Draw a Straight Line in Excel Mac

How to add a horizontal average line to chart in Excel?

In Excel, you may often create a chart to analyze the trend of the data. But sometimes, you need to add a simple horizontal line across the chart that represents the average line of the plotted data, so that you can see the average value of the data clearly and easily. In this case, how could you add a horizontal average line to a chart in Excel?

• Add a horizontal average line to a chart with a helper column
• Add a horizontal average line to a chart with VBA code
• Add a horizontal average line with an amazing tool

---

Add a horizontal average line to a chart with a helper column

If you want to insert a horizontal average line to a chart, you can calculate the average of the data first, and then create the chart. Please do as this:

1. Calculate the average of the data with Average function, for example, in Average Column C2, type this formula: =Average($B$2:$B$8) , and then drag this cell's AutoFill handle to the range as you need. See screenshot:

Note: Click to know more about applying the same formula to entire column, or applying the exact same formula/value to entire column without cell number incrementing.

2. And then select this range and choose one chart format that you want to insert, such as 2-D Column under the Insert tab. See screenshot:

3. And a chart has been created, please click one of the average data column (the red bar) in the chart, right click and select the Change Series Chart Type from the context menu. See screenshot:

4. In the popped out Change Chart Type dialog, click to highlight the Combo in the left bar, click box behind the Average, and then select the a line chart style from the drop down list. See screenshot:

5. Click the OK button. Now, you have a horizontal line representing the average in your chart, see screenshot:

Demo: add a horizontal average line to a chart with a helper column in Excel

Kutools for Excel includes more than 300 handy tools for Excel, free to try without limitation in 30 days. Download and Free Trial Now!

2 Clicks to add a horizontal average line to a column Chart

If you need to add a horizontal average line to a column chart in Excel, generally you need to add the average column to the source data, then add the data series of averages to the chart, and then change the chart type of the new added data series. However, with the Add Line to Chart feature of Kutools for Excel, you can quickly add such an average line in a chart by only 2 steps! Full Feature Free Trial 30-day!

Kutools for Excel - Includes more than 300 handy tools for Excel. Full feature free trial 30-day, no credit card required! Get It Now

Add a horizontal average line to a chart with VBA code

Supposing you have created a column chart with your data in your worksheet, and the following VBA code also can help you to insert an average line across your chart.

1．Click one of the data column in your chart, and then all the data columns will be selected, see screenshot:

2. Hold down the ALT + F11 keys, and it opens the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.

3. Click Insert > Module, and paste the following code in the Module Window.

VBA: add an average line to the chart

Sub AverageLine() 'Update 20130907 Dim ser As Series Dim arr As Variant Dim total As Double Dim outArr As Variant If VBA.TypeName(Application.Selection) <> "Series" Then Exit Sub Set ser = Application.Selection arr = ser.Values total = Application.WorksheetFunction.Average(arr) ReDim outArr(LBound(arr) To UBound(arr)) For i = LBound(outArr) To UBound(outArr)     outArr(i) = total Next With ActiveChart.SeriesCollection.NewSeries     .XValues = ser.XValues     .Values = outArr     .Name = "Average " & ser.Name     .AxisGroup = ser.AxisGroup     .MarkerStyle = xlNone     .Border.Color = ser.Border.Color     .ChartType = xlLine     .Format.Line.ForeColor.ObjectThemeColor = msoThemeColorAccent6 End With End Sub                

4. Then press F5 key to run this code, and a horizontal average line has been inserted into the column chart. See screenshot:

Note: This VBA only can run when the Column format you insert is 2-D Column.

---

Quickly add a horizontal average line with an amazing tool

This method will recommend an amazing tool, Add Line to Chart feature of Kutools for Excel, to quickly add a horizontal average line to the selected column chart with 2 clicks only!

Kutools for Excel- Includes more than 300 handy tools for Excel. Full feature free trial 30-day, no credit card required! Get It Now

Supposing you have created a column chart as below screenshot shown, and you can add a horizontal average line for it as follows:

1. Select the column chart, and click Kutools > Charts > Add Line to Chart to enable this feature.

2. In the Add line to chart dialog, please check the Average option, and click the Ok button.

Now the horizontal average line is added to the selected column chart at once.

---

Insert and print average on each page in Excel

Kutools for Excel's Paging Subtotals utility can help you to insert all kinds of subtotals (such as Sum, Max, Min, Product, etc.) in every printed page easily. Full Feature Free Trial 30-day!

Kutools for Excel - Includes more than 300 handy tools for Excel. Full feature free trial 30-day, no credit card required! Get It Now

Related articles:

• How to auto update a chart after entering new data in Excel?
• How to create combination charts and add secondary axis for it in Excel?

---

The Best Office Productivity Tools

Kutools for Excel Solves Most of Your Problems, and Increases Your Productivity by 80%

• Reuse: Quickly insert complex formulas, charts  and anything that you have used before; Encrypt Cells with password; Create Mailing List and send emails...
• Super Formula Bar (easily edit multiple lines of text and formula); Reading Layout (easily read and edit large numbers of cells); Paste to Filtered Range...
• Merge Cells/Rows/Columns without losing Data; Split Cells Content; Combine Duplicate Rows/Columns... Prevent Duplicate Cells; Compare Ranges...
• Select Duplicate or Unique Rows; Select Blank Rows (all cells are empty); Super Find and Fuzzy Find in Many Workbooks; Random Select...
• Exact Copy Multiple Cells without changing formula reference; Auto Create References to Multiple Sheets; Insert Bullets, Check Boxes and more...
• Extract Text, Add Text, Remove by Position, Remove Space; Create and Print Paging Subtotals; Convert Between Cells Content and Comments...
• Super Filter (save and apply filter schemes to other sheets); Advanced Sort by month/week/day, frequency and more; Special Filter by bold, italic...
• Combine Workbooks and WorkSheets; Merge Tables based on key columns; Split Data into Multiple Sheets; Batch Convert xls, xlsx and PDF...
• More than 300 powerful features. Supports Office/Excel 2007-2019 and 365. Supports all languages. Easy deploying in your enterprise or organization. Full features 30-day free trial. 60-day money back guarantee.

---

Office Tab Brings Tabbed interface to Office, and Make Your Work Much Easier

• Enable tabbed editing and reading in Word, Excel, PowerPoint , Publisher, Access, Visio and Project.
• Open and create multiple documents in new tabs of the same window, rather than in new windows.
• Increases your productivity by 50%, and reduces hundreds of mouse clicks for you every day!

How to Draw a Straight Line in Excel Mac

Source: https://www.extendoffice.com/documents/excel/1265-excel-add-average-line-to-chart.html

Share this post