How to make a line graph
- Paste a table with one row per date and one column per line (or the other way around; it's detected automatically).
- Choose Line race and a theme. Paper suits reports; Midnight and Neon suit finance and social video.
- Set a prefix or suffix (like $ or %), decimals, and a title that frames the comparison.
- Export an MP4 for social, or a PNG of the final frame for documents and slides.
Good line graphs to make
- Two or three things compared over time: India vs China population, Nasdaq vs S&P 500.
- A single line with a story: oil prices, the minimum wage, your monthly revenue.
- Projections: lines that continue past today with a caption marking where estimates start.
Why animate a line graph?
A static line graph shows the whole history at once, so the eye jumps to the end. Drawing it over time makes viewers predict what happens next, which is why line races hold attention on social media.
Story captions at key dates (a crash, a policy change, a record) explain the bumps as they happen.