When is it inappropriate to use a pie chart
XL2010-Charts-05-PieChart.mp4
in this video we're going to take a look
at how to create a pie chart in Excel
pie chart is usually used to show how
the whole of something is divided up
into parts frequent application is to
show how a budget is being split up this
particular example shows how the lottery
proceeds were distributed for a
particular state and the data is pretty
simple all you're ever going to have
with a pie chart is one column with
labels you're going to have another
column with numbers and all you have to
do is select them before you start and
then go to insert and go to pie and I
think you should probably stay away from
a 3d pie chart just because it distorts
the pieces of pie so we're going to do a
2d pie chart and as usual going to move
its location to a brand new sheet and
there's a pie chart we've got a legend
over here but if the legend is over here
you have to constantly move your eyes
back and forth between the legend and
the pieces of the pie to figure out
what's what so we're going to get rid of
that by selecting it and hitting the
Delete key then we're going to first of
all you should always have a title so
we're going to call this 1993
lottery proceeds hit the enter key and
now we've got a label but it's still
pretty useless pie chart because don't
have any labels around the pieces of the
pie so let's go up here on our layout
tab under data labels and I want my
labels on the outside end so puts the
numbers there but it's still pretty
useless because they don't have any tax
telling what the numbers mean so the way
to get that fixed is go back to data
labels here and choose more data label
options and what we want here this is a
little confusing but what we want is the
category name and notice what I did that
it jumped everything back inside the pie
and I want it outside the pie I think
it's easy to read that way and click on
close and there I go now notice whenever
you select one of the labels all of them
get selected I think these labels are a
little bit small so we're going to make
them a little bit bigger here so it's
easier to read okay now if you want to
select just one label let's say I want
to select this senior citizens label for
some reason click on it once and then
click on it a second time because the
first time it selects everything the
second time it just likes to label that
you click on so let's say I want to make
that bold so that one stands out a
little bit any formatting I do now we'll
just be applied to the senior citizens
program
label a couple of other things you might
want to do you might want to explode a
piece of the pie to explode apiece just
click on the pot you'll see handles
appear around the pieces of the pie and
if I want to pull that out a little bit
just click and drag it straight out and
now you can emphasize that piece of the
pie if I take the label here and get my
whoops and I get my four-headed arrow
and I start dragging if you drag it too
far away a line will show up connecting
in and one last thing you might want to
do with a pie chart is you might want to
resize it okay the way you resize it is
you have to click in this area right
here on one of the four corners you got
to be outside the pie but inside the
corn and when you do you'll see the
handles appear around the pie and you
can drag those and you can resize the
pie and make it any size that you want
to make it whoops that's a little too
much let's go back down
and that's pretty much the basics for
creating a pie chart in Excel
