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How to Create a Goal Line on a Chart in Excel?

Last Updated : 27 May, 2024
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Excel is a powerful data visualization and management tool that can be used to store, analyze, and create reports on large data. Data can be visualized or compared using different kinds of plots in Excel such as line charts, bar charts, etc.

A goal line is also called a target line. It helps show actual performance against your expected target.  For example, you may want to view actual sales against the target sales to understand how the business performs against expectations.

How to Create a Goal Line on a Chart

For demonstration, we will use the below table values which have monthly sales with target sales for that month,

Dataset
Dataset

First, we will create a regular chart say a column chart.

Steps to create a column create a column chart

Step 1: Select the data

Selecting data
Selecting Data

Step 2: Click on the "Insert" tab and select column chart.

Selecting column chart
Selecting Column Chart

Step 3: A column chart will get created.

Column chart
Column Chart Created

Create Goal Line

Step 1: Right-click on any bar and select the "change series chart type" option.

Changing chart type
Changing Series Chart Type

Step 2: In the change chart dialog box, make sure the Combo category is selected.

Changing chart dialogue box
Combo Category is Selected

Step 3: Click the dropdown of the "Target sales" field.

Clicking-dropdown
Target Sales

Step 4: Select the Line option.

Selecting-line-option
Selecting Line Option

Step 5: Press OK.

Output:

Output
Output

In the above graph, the Orange line represents the goal line.


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