Make A Pie Chart With Percentages

Creating A Pie Chart In Excel

To create a Pie chart in Excel, you need to have your data structured as shown below.

The description of the pie slices should be in the left column and the data for each slice should be in the right column.

Once you have the data in place, below are the steps to create a Pie chart in Excel:

The above steps would instantly add a Pie chart on your worksheet .

While you can figure out the approximate value of each slice in the chart by looking at its size, its always better to add the actual values to each slice of the chart.

These are called the Data Labels

To add the data labels on each slice, right-click on any of the slices and click on Add Data Labels.

This will instantly add the values to each slice.

You can also easily format these data labels to look better on the chart .

# Using The Chart Filter To Filer Your Pie Chart

You can filter your chart anytime by using the Chart Filters option. This feature allows you to analyze your chart deeply. Suppose in your chart you dont require a data now. You can simply remove the selection using this Chart Filter option to obtain a new pie chart with the rest of the data. See the following picture for a better understanding.

After removing the tick mark from the category press on the apply button to proceed with the filter option.

As you can see the chart is automatically modified after performing the filter option.

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Data Visualization With Pie Charts

One of the easiest charts to build and read, a pie chart displays data as parts of a whole. A pie chart is a circular graph that divides data into individual parts called slices or wedges. These slices are shaped like pieces of a pie.

Each slice of a pie chart displays data as a percentage of a whole, with larger values having correspondingly larger slices. Pie charts will always have values that add up to 100% of the total. They are good at showing data relationships when you want to see how an object acts as part of the whole or a percentage of the whole.

To build a pie chart you only need two columns of data. The first column will include the names of each section. The second will identify the numerical values of each section. You dont need to know the percentage of these values up front. The charting tool will make those calculations for you.

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Types Of Excel Pie Charts

There are three main types of pie charts.

• 2-D circle: Most commonly used pie chart
• 3-D circle: Three-dimensional pie chart
• Doughnut: Circle graph with a hole in the middle

Besides the usual 2-D pie charts, there is a pie of pie chart and bar or pie with a circle. This is a graph used to further subdivide only certain items into the original pie chart and see the breakdown.

The 3-D pie chart is basically not recommended. Since the circle looks distorted because it is three-dimensional, the area and proportion of the graph cant be read correctly. Unless you have a good reason, its best to avoid 3-D pie.

Doughnuts can double graphs and are sometimes used when comparing two data.

Basically, I think there is no problem if you can use 2-D pie charts properly. Subsidiary pie charts, 3-D pie, and doughnut pie charts are a little difficult to handle because they are inevitably complicated.

Example : Create Basic Pie Chart

Suppose we have the following two pandas DataFrame:

import pandas as pd#create DataFramedf = pd.DataFrame#view DataFrameprint  team  points0    A      251    A      122    B      253    B      144    B      195    B      536    C      257    C      29

We can use the following syntax to create a pie chart that displays the portion of total points scored by each team:

df.groupby.sum.plot

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Example : Basic Pie Chart

Figure 2 shows a pie chart for the classes of passengers on the Titanic. The goal is to show that over half of the passengers had third-class tickets . The other passengers are nearly evenly split between first- and second-class tickets. The goal is not to focus on specific percentages but on the relationship of parts to the whole.

Figure 2: Basic pie chart

# Adding Labels On Slices

To add labels to the slices of the pie chart do the following.

• 1st select the pie chart and press on to the + shaped button which is actually the Chart Elements option
• Then put a tick mark on the Data Labels You will see that the data labels are inserted into the slices of your pie chart.

• If you want different labels on your chart you can press the right arrow button just beside data labels. You will find different labeling options.

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Pie Charts Versus Bar Charts

When displaying statistical information, refrain from using more than one pie chart for each figure. Chart 5.4.6 shows two pie charts side-by-side, where a grouped bar chart would have shown the information more clearly. A user might find it difficult to compare a segment from one pie chart to the corresponding segment of the other pie chart. However, in a grouped bar chart, these segments become bars which are lined up side by side, making it much easier to make comparisons.

Changing The Pie Chart Colors

If you are not quite happy with the default colors of your Excel pie graph, you can either:

Changing the color them of the pie chart in Excel

To choose another color theme for your Excel pie graph, click the Chart Styles button , go to the Color tab and select the color theme you want.

Alternatively, click anywhere within your pie chart to activate the Chart Tools tabs on the ribbon, go to the Design tab > Chart Styles group and click the Change Colors button:

Choosing colors for each slice individually

As you can see in the screenshot above, the choice of color themes for Excel charts is quite limited, and if you are aiming to make a stylish and attractive pie graph, you may want to choose each slice color individually. For example, if you’ve chosen to place data labels inside the slices, the black text may be difficult to read on dark colors.

To change the color of a certain slice, click that slice and then click it again so that only this one slice is selected. Go to the Format tab, click Shape Fill and choose the color you want:

Tip.

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When Should A Pie Chart Be Used

Pie charts can be said to be the most common graphs, but dont use them easily. Note that depending on the content of the data, making a pie chart may make it difficult to read the data.

Conditions when using a pie chart

1 When you want to express the ratio of data

2 When the difference in the ratio of each item is large,

3 When the number of items to be compared is small,

is a major premise of a pie chart. A pie chart is a good graph to show the percentage of data, not the absolute value. Therefore, it is used when you want to show the composition ratio of data.

and are also important points. Even when expressing proportions, there are cases where it is better to use a bar graph rather than a circle if there is not much difference in the numerical values of each item. Pie charts are useful when they include overwhelming proportions or extremely low items.

Pie charts are also suitable when the number of items is small , such as agree or disagree or yes or no or other.

Constructing A Pie Chart

A pie chart is constructed by converting the share of each component into a percentage of 360 degrees. In Chart 5.4.2, music preferences in 14- to 19-year-olds are clearly shown.

The pie chart quickly tells you that

• half of students like rap best , and
• the remaining students prefer alternative , rock and roll , country and classical .

Tip! When drawing a pie chart, ensure that the segments are ordered by size and in a clockwise direction.

In order to reproduce this pie chart, follow this step-by-step approach:

If 50% of the students liked rap, then 50% of the whole circle graph would equal 180 degrees.

• Draw a circle with your protractor.
• Starting from the 12 oclock position on the circle, measure an angle of 180 degrees with your protractor. The rap component should make up half of your circle. Mark this radius off with your ruler.
• Repeat the process for each remaining music category, drawing in the radius according to its percentage of 360 degrees. The final category need not be measured as its radius is already in position.

Labelling the segments with percentage values often makes it easier to tell quickly which segment is bigger. If there are few categories, the percentage and the category label should be indicated beside their corresponding segments like in Chart 5.4.3. This way, users do not have to constantly look back at the legend in order to identify what category each colour represents.

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How To Make A Pie Chart With Percentages

How Can Calculate Percentage

1. How to calculate percentage of a number. Use the percentage formula: P% * X = Y

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Sorting The Pie Chart Slices By Size

As a general rule, pie charts are easier to understand when slices are sorted from largest to smallest. The fastest way to do this is to sort the source data on the worksheet. If sorting the source data is not the option, you can rearrange the slices in your Excel pie chart in the following way.

Example : Bar Chart Shows Similar Values

When values for a parts-to-whole relationship are very similar, pie charts are not the best choice. Look at the pie chart for the Titanic in Figure 2. When the goal is to show “nearly half” of the passengers were in either first or second class, the pie chart is helpful. When the goal is to show more detail, a bar chart is easier to visually interpret. The graph in Figure 3 shows the same data plotted in a bar chart.

Figure 3: Data from Figure 2 plotted in a bar chart

In Figure 3, we can easily see that there are fewer passengers in second class than in first class, since our eyes are better at comparing length in a bar chart than angles and areas in a pie chart.

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How To Make Them Yourself

First, put your data into a table , then add up all the values to get a total:

Next, divide each value by the total and multiply by 100 to get a percent:

Now to figure out how many degrees for each “pie slice” .

A Full Circle has 360 degrees, so we do this calculation:

Now you are ready to start drawing!

Draw a circle.

Then use your protractor to measure the degrees of each sector.

Here I show the first sector …

Finish up by coloring each sector and giving it a label like “Comedy: 4 “, etc.

Pie Of Pie And Bar Of Pie Charts

If your Excel pie graph has too many small slices, you may want to create a Pie of Pie chart and display small slices on an additional pie, which is a slice of the main pie.

Bar of Piechart is very similar to the Pie of Pie graph, except that the selected slices are displayed on a secondary bar chart.

When you create a pie of pie or bar of pie charts in Excel, the last 3 data categories are moved to the second chart by default . And because the default choice does not always work well, you can either:

• Sort the source data in your worksheet in descending order so that the worst performing items end up in the secondary chart, or
• Choose which data categories to move to the second chart.

Choosing data categories for the secondary chart

To manually choose data categories that should be moved to the secondary chart, perform the following steps:

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Should A Pie Chart Add Up To 100

Pie Chart Mishaps and How to Avoid Them Simply put, pie charts are best used to show parts of a whole. Specifically, pie charts should illustrate meaningful relationships between percentages, or parts of 100%. If the data you want to display doesnt add up to 100%, a pie chart might not be your best choice.