Sparklines

Inline mini-charts inside cells — line, column, or win/loss

Sparklines are mini-charts rendered inside a single cell. They're authored as SPARKLINE() formulas, which means they live alongside the rest of the calculation graph — referenced cells recompute the sparkline on change, copy/paste duplicates the formula, and XLSX + ODS round-trip preserves every option.

Basic usage

Type =SPARKLINE(A1:A10) into a cell. The cell's effective value becomes a sparkline structured value, the renderer paints the chart, and the formula bar still shows the source.

A1:A10 = numeric values
B1     = =SPARKLINE(A1:A10)        // line sparkline (default)
B2     = =SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {"charttype","column"})
B3     = =SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {"charttype","winloss"})

Options

SPARKLINE takes an optional second argument — a flat array of "key", value pairs in Excel array literal syntax ({…}). All options round-trip both directions through XLSX (<x14:sparklineGroup> attributes) and via SPARKLINE formula text.

Chart type + color

=SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {"charttype","line"})
=SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {"charttype","column"})
=SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {"charttype","winloss"})
=SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {"color","#638ec6"})

Axis options

// Render an X-axis line
=SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {"axis",TRUE})

// Plot empty cells as zero (default: gap)
=SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {"emptycells","zero"})

// Or connect across blanks
=SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {"emptycells","span"})

// Treat the X axis as a date axis (when paired with a date series)
=SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {"dateaxis",TRUE})

Point highlights

=SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {
  "markers",TRUE,           // line sparkline: diamond markers at every point
  "highpoint",TRUE,         // highlight the maximum
  "lowpoint",TRUE,          // highlight the minimum
  "firstpoint",TRUE,        // highlight the first point
  "lastpoint",TRUE,         // highlight the last point
  "negativepoints",TRUE     // column/winloss: color negative bars differently
})

Axis bounds

By default each sparkline scales to its own min/max ("individual"). Switch to a group-wide or custom scale:

// Use a custom max + min instead of auto
=SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {"max",100, "min",-10})

// Scale to the group of sparklines in the same x14:sparklineGroup
=SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {"minaxistype","group", "maxaxistype","group"})

// Custom — exact values from max/min
=SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {"minaxistype","custom", "maxaxistype","custom"})

Line weight

=SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {"lineweight",2.5})    // line sparkline only

Composing options

Combine any of the above in a single options block:

=SPARKLINE(A1:A10, {
  "charttype","line",
  "color","#1d4ed8",
  "markers",TRUE,
  "highpoint",TRUE,
  "lowpoint",TRUE,
  "lineweight",2,
  "emptycells","span"
})

XLSX round-trip

Sparklines export as <x14:sparklineGroup> blocks inside the worksheet's extLst. Two sparklines share a group when every axis option matches; distinct settings each get their own group block. The exporter follows Excel's grouping rule precisely so a saved-and-reopened file produces the same UI.

The legacy default highlight behavior (markers + high + low for line; high + low + negative for column / winloss) ships unchanged for bare SPARKLINE(range) formulas without explicit options.

ODS round-trip

LibreOffice's calcext:sparkline-groups extension is parsed on import and emitted on export.

Working with structured values

A sparkline cell's ev.structuredValue is a SparkLineResult:

type SparkLineResult = {
  kind: "sparkline";
  data: number[];
  options: Record<string, string | number | boolean>;
};

Custom renderers can read this directly and replace the default chart implementation.