Add a chart to a spreadsheet

You can turn a table of numbers into a chart that floats over the grid. The chart reads its cells, so it changes as soon as you change a value.

Add a chart

1. Select the cells you want to chart, including the row of names at the top and the column of labels on the left. If you select a single cell, Sheets charts the whole table around it.
2. Open the Insert menu and click Chart.

A column chart appears below the cells, selected, and its panel opens on the right. Sheets reads your table the way most charts are laid out:

• Text in the first row and the first column is read as names, not values.
• Each column of numbers becomes a series, named by the text above it. When the table has more columns than rows, each row becomes a series instead, named by the text on its left.
• The series names make the chart title.

A chart holds up to 32 series and 2,000 values. Hidden rows and columns are included in the chart for now.

Change the data and the look

Click a chart to select it, and a panel headed Chart opens on the right. Its Chart section has the chart's Type (Bar, Column, Line, or Pie), the Title, Legend and Font, the Stacking of a column or bar chart (None, Standard or 100%), and then the cells it reads:

• Data range shows the cells the chart reads, such as A1:D10. Type a new range and press Enter to chart other cells. To chart cells on another tab, put the tab name in front, such as 'Sales 2026'!A1:D10.
• Switch rows/columns turns each row into a series instead of each column.
• Use row 1 as headers and Use column A as labels say whether the first row and column hold names or values.

Below that you pick the axis titles, whether each axis shows (Show axis), whether the category axis runs the other way (Reverse axis order), the lowest and highest value on the value axis (a percent on a 100% stack, and automatic again when you switch to or from 100%), the gridlines, and a color for each series or pie slice, which reads Automatic until you pick one.

Below them, Labels sets the Color of all the chart's text. Fill sets the chart's background, and its Style how the bars and slices are drawn: Solid, Hachure, Cross-hatch, or Zigzag. Solid bars and slices have no outline; hatched ones get an outline in their own color. Stroke sets the color, width, and style of the axes and gridlines, and the width of a line chart's lines, except in a chart imported from Office, which keeps its own, and Sketch how rough the chart looks, from Architect (clean) to Cartoonist. A new chart starts clean and solid, like a Google Sheets chart. A chart with more than 200 values (for a pie, more than 200 slices) draws its bars, lines, and slices smooth and solid whatever the sketch, so it stays quick to show; the Sketch section says so. The chart prints and downloads in its look.

Click a cell to deselect the chart and close the panel. On a phone the chart panel doesn't open.

Move, resize, rotate, and remove a chart

Click a chart to select it. A frame with square handles appears around it.

• Drag the chart to move it.
• Drag a corner or edge handle to resize it. Hold Shift while you drag a corner to keep the width and height in proportion.
• Drag the round handle on the short stalk above the chart to rotate it. Hold Shift while you drag to snap the angle to steps of 15 degrees.

On a phone or tablet, tap a chart to select it, then drag it. Swiping across a chart you haven't selected scrolls the sheet.

Press Delete to remove the selected chart, or Esc to deselect it.

The chart's panel starts with the same X, Y, W, H, Angle and Keep aspect ratio as the image panel, and ends with the Arrange buttons.

Right-click a chart, or press and hold it on a touch screen, for its menu:

• Cut and Copy, as described below.
• Duplicate puts a copy on top, a little down and to the right.
• Order brings the chart in front of the charts and images it overlaps, or sends it behind them.
• Download image saves the chart in its look as an SVG picture on a white background, named after its title. This works with view access too. A chart that shows #REF! or has too much data doesn't have it.
• Delete removes it.

Charts and images stack together. With a chart selected, ⌘] brings it forward a step and ⌘[ sends it back a step, and adding Shift brings it to the front or sends it to the back. Use Ctrl in place of ⌘ on Windows.

Copy a chart

Select a chart and press Ctrl+C (Mac: ⌘C) to copy it, or Ctrl+X (Mac: ⌘X) to cut it. Cut and Copy in the chart's menu and in the Edit menu do the same. Cutting copies the chart and removes it. A chart that shows #REF! or Too much data for a chart can't be copied.

Paste it with Ctrl+V (Mac: ⌘V):

• In the same spreadsheet, the copy reads the same cells as the original, so it changes when they do.
• In Docs, Slides, Vector, or another spreadsheet, the chart keeps the numbers it showed when you copied it. It stays a chart you can edit there, and you change its numbers with Edit data.

A pasted chart keeps its look, and a chart copied from Docs, Slides, or Vector pastes into a spreadsheet in its look too.