How to Create and Customize a Pie Chart in Excel from Scratch?

creating a pie chart in

Let’s learn how to create a pie chart in Excel. Visual representation of data is of crucial importance in data analysis, handling and representation. Microsoft Excel allows you to visually represent your data via pie charts and many other data charts.

Recommended read: How to shade alternate rows in Excel?

Steps to create a pie chart in Excel

Let’s get started with this step-by-step guide to creating a well-ordered pie chart in excel.

1. Prepare a tabular dataset

To begin creating a pie chart, you would require a tabular representation of your data to be prepared in your sheet. Let us take an example of tabular data here-

Tabular Data
Tabular Data

2 . Creating a Pie Chart

We see that there are income records of 8 employees available before us. Now, we want a visual representation as to who has a fairly large or small amount of income.

You would need to create a pie chart of this tabular data. Here is how-

  • Select the entire table.
  • Go to the Insert tab.  
  • Under the Charts section, click the Pie or Doughnut Chart icon.
Pie or Doughnut Chart Icon
Pie or Doughnut Chart Icon
  • You can select between 2D, 3D, and Doughnut charts.
  • We have selected a 2D chart for instance here.
Pie Chart Options
Pie Chart Options

You can now see that a 2D pie chart has been created with legends below the chart.

2D Pie Chart
2D Pie Chart

Also read: How to calculate the square root of a number in Excel?

3. Customizing a Pie Chart

Pie charts in excel are fully customizable. If you don’t like something about the chart, you can always change it. Here is how you can customize a pie chart-

  • Click on the pie chart.
  • Select the paintbrush icon to choose Chart Styles.
  • You can see a variety of chart styles available to you. Choose from the styles you like.
  • Go to the Color tab to change the color combinations of your pie chart.
  • Click the paintbrush icon again to close styling options.

This is how our newly styled pie chart looks like now-

Customized Style & Color
Customized Style & Color

Another way to change the style and color of your pie chart is by going to the Design tab that is available only while a pie chart is selected.

Design Tab Styling Options
Design Tab Styling Options

4. Customizing legends

You can manually customize the legend position and style like this-

  • Select the pie chart.
  • Go to the Design tab.
  • Under the Chart Layouts, pull-down Quick Layouts.
  • Select the desired layout you want for your legends.
Quick Layout for Legend Customization
Quick Layout for Legend Customization

Conclusion

This was all about creating a pie chart from scratch and customizing it to your will. If you have any questions regarding pie charts in Excel, feel free to post a comment and we will help you out!