Quickly add a pie chart to your presentation, and see how to arrange the data to get the result you want. Customize chart elements, apply a chart style and colors, and insert a linked Excel chart.
Add a pie chart to a presentation in PowerPoint
Use a pie chart to show the size of each item in a data series, proportional to the sum of the items. When you need a pie chart in a presentation, use PowerPoint to create it or, if you prefer, create the chart in Excel, and copy it into PowerPoint (see Copy an Excel chart to another Office program). Here’s how:
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Click INSERT > Chart.
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Click the chart type, and then double-click the chart you want. For help deciding which chart is best for your data, see Available chart types.
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In the spreadsheet that appears, replace the default data with your own information.
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When you have finished, close the spreadsheet.
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Use a pie chart to show the size of each item in a data series, proportional to the sum of the items.
In this pie chart, the data series consists of Sales Order Amounts.
Each Salesperson’s total is shown as a percentage of Total Orders.
The categories for the data are the Salespeople themselves, and the legend shows their Names, color-coded to their slices in the pie.
PowerPoint has great charting tools for creating a pie chart, which typically shows simple, straightforward data.
If, however, you prefer creating charts in Excel, create the pie chart there, and copy it into PowerPoint, keeping a link to the original, if you want.
We cover this in Movie 3: Insert a linked Excel pie chart.
To create a pie chart in PowerPoint, on the HOME tab, click the arrow next to New Slide, and Blank to insert a blank slide.
Then click INSERT, Chart, and choose Pie.
The default chart is a standard pie chart. I’ll point to it for a larger preview.
That’s what I want, so I’ll click OK.
The chart is inserted, and a small window, with placeholder data, appears. We’ll type our data here.
So, we can see the chart better. I’ll resize the window by pointing to an edge and dragging the two-headed arrow cursor.
We’ll start by typing the Names of the Salespeople, which go in the category column, where Quarters appear by default.
I’ll click the first cell and type: Briggs, then Dyer, Rose, and all the names. Then, I press Enter.
The Names appear as the legend in the chart.
We’ll type our data, the individual Order Amounts, in the next column.
To start, let’s change the heading to Order Amounts, and press Enter.
To make the B column look right in the data window, I’ll point to its edge and double-click.
That widens the cell to fit the heading.
Note that, in the chart, the title reflects the new heading.
Next, we’ll type in the Sales data, which determines how the pie is divided.
For Briggs, I’ll type the Order Amount, and press Enter.
Then I do the same with the others. For Dyer, it’s 1963. The chart updates as I add data.
I have typed in the Order Amount for each Salesperson, and the pie is divided accordingly.
Since I am finished adding data, I’ll click X to close the data window.
Up next: Customize a pie chart.
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