Transforming Data with Pie Chart Techniques

Pie charts. In this section, we're going to create a pie chart to show the relationship of parts to the whole. So you can think of a pie that is broken up into several slices.

We'll be able to see the entire pie as well as each individual piece that makes up the pie. To create a 2D pie chart, all you need to do is click one cell within the dataset. You don't have to select all the data.

Unless you want to make a pie chart using just a subsection, then you'll actually select multiple parts of the table. But if I want to include the whole table, all I need to do is select one cell. I'll go to the Insert tab because I am inserting a chart, and the type of chart that I want to insert is a pie chart.

This icon is going to be the most recognizable because it looks like a circle. So I'll click here and then I'll create a 2D pie chart, and now I have a 2D pie chart. Now I want to change this chart, and I want to turn it into a 3D pie chart.

I'm following along with the exercise that's in the sheet. So after creating a 2D pie chart, I want to change it to a 3D pie chart. I'll head over to the Chart Design tab, which is only visible if I'm in the chart.

Then I'll click Change Chart Type. Here I'll look at the several options I have for the pie chart, and here’s the 3D option. I could also create a donut pie chart as well, but I'll choose 3D Pie.

When I click OK, now I have a 3D pie chart. You might say, hey, wait a minute, that doesn't look like a 3D pie chart. It's not that much different from what we just saw.

If you take a look closely, you see towards the bottom there's a little bit of shadow here. But let's say I wanted to emphasize the 3D effect of the pie. This is not in your instructions, but here’s an easy way that you can do that without going to Chart Styles. I'm going to right-click, and if you're working with a 3D pie chart, you will see an option called 3D Rotation.

One click on 3D Rotation opens up a side pane that will give you options for customizing your chart. Now I'm going to focus on the Y rotation, and if I decrease the Y rotation, I will emphasize the 3D effect of the pie chart. Now you might be wondering, what is X rotation? If I increase X rotation, this will begin to rotate the pie in three-dimensional space.

So this might be useful if I want a certain part of the pie facing in a certain direction, like maybe that blue slice right here. Now in the instructions, they're asking you to pull away a piece of the pie pertaining to Sykes. What I would like to do though is pull away the piece pertaining to green. I can tell because when I hover my mouse over the blue slice, a little tooltip comes up and says that it displays the total sales as well as green.

Now to pull away this particular slice, I'm going to click three times in a very specific way. When I click the first time, I see dots all around the pie. That means the entire pie is being selected.

So I need to click again just to select the blue slice. Second click—now there are only three dots just around the slice—but I need one more click, and this is a special click. It's going to be a click and drag.

So I'm going to click and drag this particular slice away from the rest of the pie. Now I'm able to separate that particular slice, and during my presentation, I can highlight that particular part of the pie if I'm referring to a certain piece of the pie. That’s one type of pie chart that you can create in the class.

You'll have an exercise that you can work on where you can try this yourself. So let's head over to that exercise. I'm going to close this Format Chart Area pane.

I'll scroll down towards the bottom, and here’s the exercise we’re going to work with. I'm going to click anywhere in the data, and the first task is to use the above data to create a 2D pie chart. So I'll go to Insert, go to the 3D Pie icon, and choose the 2D Pie Chart.

Next, I want to make some changes to the layout, colors, and styles. So I'll head over to Layout, Quick Layout, and choose Layout 6. Layout 6 is actually named Layout 6. If you just hover your mouse over the different layouts, you'll be able to make sure you're selecting the right one. Then select Monochromatic Palette 9. If I don't know what that is, I'll head over to the monochromatic section, and it's basically the ninth palette going down.

So this is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. If I hover my mouse for just a bit, I'll see that that's the palette I'm supposed to select. Then I'll go to Style 8. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. If I hover, I can just confirm it actually says Style 8, and there we go. I've now completed Task 2, and now I need to go and change this 2D pie chart into a donut pie chart.

So I'll click on Change Chart Type because I want to change the type, and of all the icons that are over here that look like a donut, this is the one that I'm going to guess is the type I'm looking for. And if I hover my mouse over that particular icon, I see a pop-up, a little tooltip that says Donut. I'll select that and click OK.

Final part of the exercise: I want to pull away the piece pertaining to green. If I'm not too good with colors, I don't have to be, because if I hover my mouse over the slices, I'll see the name of the person whose slice it belongs to, and the 7% slice is green. I'll click once, I'll click twice, third time, click and drag.

Now I'm selecting the label, so you want to be careful. Don't select the label—you want to select the slice. So I'm going to go back here and make sure I don't do that.

I'll go to the outer edge: one click, two clicks. Now I'm going to click and drag and pull that piece away. So I was actually fortunate that I did select the label.

If that happens to you, you'll know what to do. Just make sure you're selecting the pie slice and not the label. So in this section, we covered how to create a pie chart, turn it into a 3D or donut pie chart, and pull away a piece if you're looking to focus on a certain slice of the pie when you're creating your reports.