How to Create a Pie Chart in Excel

Follow these instructions to make a pie chart in Excel.

Excel Instruction

Pie Chart

1.: Collect the data you want to make a pie chart from, and compose a frequency table.
2.: Highlight the cells making up the entire table, and choose the chart type Pie chart.
3.: Add chart elements and make changes so your chart appears informative and clear. Remember to give your chart a title!

Example 1

Greendale Business school is an international school with students from all over the world. Make a pie chart of the different nationalities represented at the school.

1.

First, you need to determine the number of students that represent each country, and use the data to make a frequency table:

Spreadsheet in Excel presenting students data

2.

Highlight the table and choose Insert from the top menu bar in Excel. Then select pie chart from the Recommended Charts menu. If an appropriate pie chart doesn’t appear, choose from the Pie Chart menu, next to the Recommended Charts menu.

Spreadsheet in Excel presenting bar chart, pie chart and student data

3.

Now that you have chosen a pie chart, you can add various chart elements to refine the chart as you wish. In the picture above you can see that the title is “Nationalities”. This is an okay title, but it would be even better if you change the title to “Nationalities Represented at Greendale Business School, 2021”. That title explains more clearly what the chart represents.

Another thing you can change is the colors of each section (or slice) of the pie chart. You could use colors from each country’s flag, or just change the colors to more distinctive colors that go well together (you can use a color palette for this).

One way to do this is to double click the pie chart. This will make a menu appear, as shown below. You can then choose a fitting color for each section.

Spreadsheet in Excel presenting pie chart and editing options