Line chart race
Time-series lines with historical trails, for when the shape of the history matters more than the current ranking.
When to use it
A bar race answers "who is ahead right now". A line race answers "how did we get here" — every item keeps its full history on screen as a trail.
Best with ten entities or fewer. Lines cross and overlap, and past ten the chart becomes a tangle no styling will rescue.
Reach for it when the interesting part is the shape of the curve: a crash, a plateau, a slow climb that overtakes a fast one.
Items and lines
The Items panel holds the essentials. Item Count caps how many lines are drawn; Show Items and Order Items decide which ones qualify and how they sort.
Line Stroke Width and Line Smoothness control the drawing. Smoothness is worth experimenting with: fully smoothed curves look elegant but can imply data points that do not exist, so for sparse or volatile data a lower value is more honest.
Figure, Figure Size, Figure Padding, and Figure Space control the marker that rides the head of each line — usually a logo or flag.
Rulers and readability
Line races have two independent rulers, and they are the difference between a readable chart and a pretty one.
Horizontal Ruler runs along the date axis. Show Every Nth Date is the setting to reach for when labels crowd — on a long daily series you rarely want every date drawn.
Vertical Ruler runs along the value axis, where Line Density controls how many gridlines are drawn.
Both carry their own font, colour, and Label Position controls.
Area fill and labels
The Area panel fills the space under each line. With Opacity kept low it adds weight without hiding the lines behind it; at full opacity it only works for a single series.
Label Background puts a filled shape behind each label. On a busy chart where lines pass behind text, this is what keeps the labels readable.
Difference mode
The Chart panel carries a Mode setting. Beyond the standard multi-line view, it can plot the difference between two chosen series — First Item and Second Item — with Difference Sign controlling how the gap is expressed.
This is the mode to use when the story is "the gap widened", which is much harder to read from two separate lines than from one line of the delta itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Our lines are a tangle. What should we change?
Reduce Item Count first — ten is the practical ceiling and fewer is usually better. If every series genuinely matters, consider whether a bar race or a table would tell the story more clearly, or split one chart into two.
Why do the curves overshoot the data points?
Line Smoothness interpolates between points, which can bow the curve past the actual values. Lower it for volatile data where the exact points matter.
Can we show only part of the history?
The line race draws the trail as the timeline advances, so the visible history grows with playback. To start partway through, trim the rows in the spreadsheet rather than the layer.
Start Building
Free to start. No install. Import a spreadsheet and export a share-ready video in minutes.