Add Vertical Line To XY Chart

This tutorial shows you how to add a vertical line to a XY Trend chart. It is based on example found in Trend_Control_Chrt_Basics.XLS.

See Add_Horizontal_Line   for information on horizontal lines.

Add Vertical Line to Chart

You may want to add a vertical line to your trend chart to highlight a particular situation or draw  viewers' attention to a point on your trend line. 

We can specify the beginning and ending points of our line with two X and Y points.  Consider the example chart below. We have a trend chart of data for the period 3/25/03 to 5/31/03. We want to add a vertical line on 4/15/03 (tax day) and have that line go from 0 to the value for that day.  We can make a simple Vertical Line Data table that includes the X and Y values for the beginning and end points of our line, as shown in cells B15:C16.

To add this vertical line to the chart:

1. Select cells: B15:C16. Place cursor on outside border of the data selection, a small cross hair type cursor will appear.

3. Press left mouse key, drag cursor to the chart; cursor will change  to a +

4. Release left mouse key.  Paste Special Menu will automatically appear (See picture copy below)

Notice the value in Cell C16 of a Vertical Line table, 1.35. That is actually the Y value for 4/15/03. That value is the result of a VLookup formula that gets the actual value on the day. The example file lets you adjust the date so that you can get a feel for the interactive potential of excel charts.

5. Press OK; the vertical line will be added. You can now format the line as you like (color, dashes, etc.)

Any changes to your  Vertical Line Data table will show up in your chart. If you change the date, the vertical line on the chart will automatically move to that date..