Building Pie Charts

Quick reference

• 00:04 In this video, we're going to look at pie charts, but before we do,
• 00:08 I need to tell you why you should try and avoid using these charts at all costs.
• 00:13 The challenge is your brain is not very good at working out angles or areas.
• 00:17 And the challenge with pie charts is that they're all about angles and areas.
• 00:22 This is one of the most difficult types of charts to read properly if it
• 00:26 doesn't have a legend or specific numbers on it, and it's nothing personal.
• 00:30 It's just something to do with the human brain.
• 00:32 We're not as good working on angles as we are working out the length of
• 00:36 straight lines.
• 00:38 So my rule of thumb is this, if you absolutely have to put a pie chart on your
• 00:42 worksheet, it should have no more than three data series.
• 00:45 As soon as you get the three data series or more,
• 00:47 you should be flipping it out to a bar chart or a column chart because your brain
• 00:50 is excellent at drawing the distinction between two lines of different lengths.
• 00:54 Having said that, pie charts are asked for by name, and sometimes,
• 00:58 you just have to put one in.
• 01:00 So let me show you how to build the most effective one that we can.
• 01:03 We'll start by selecting just the spent and remaining detail lines.
• 01:07 And then we'll go to Insert and
• 01:09 choose the Recommended Charts to see what Microsoft offers.
• 01:12 And this actually makes me super happy because in previous versions of Excel,
• 01:16 the pie chart will be offered first.
• 01:18 But Microsoft just tweaking in an algorithm to present better,
• 01:21 more effective charts.
• 01:22 Regardless, we're gonna go with the pie chart because that's what
• 01:25 the purpose of this module is.
• 01:27 And we'll say, Okay.
• 01:29 Now, obviously the chart title is a problem, so we'll fix that first,
• 01:34 equals and we'll select cell A5 and say Enter.
• 01:39 Now, the pie chart itself has two big problems.
• 01:42 Number one, you can't tell what the values actually are here, and
• 01:46 what the percentages are.
• 01:47 It's too difficult to read because you've got to try and approximate it.
• 01:51 The second thing is it's got a really dense color saturation.
• 01:54 So no matter how important the rest of your report is,
• 01:57 the pie chart is gonna be constantly screaming for
• 01:59 your attention in your peripheral vision, trying to bring you back into it.
• 02:03 So we're gonna deal with both of these.
• 02:06 The first thing, we're going to right click on one of these wedges and
• 02:09 say Add Data Labels, and this will add the values.
• 02:14 Now, I can also right click and say let's go Format Data Labels,
• 02:19 and you'll notice that we have the option to say would I like the value,
• 02:22 would I like the percentage, and
• 02:24 I'm actually just going to go with the percentage and not the value itself.
• 02:29 I also have the option of changing where this particular piece shows up.
• 02:33 Would I like it as best fit,
• 02:35 which means that as the chart changes it'll either put things inside or outside?
• 02:40 Would I prefer to see it outside end, or inside?
• 02:43 Outside would show up out here, inside would be inside.
• 02:47 I prefer to actually go with the outside end.
• 02:51 Now, the next thing that I wanna deal with here is the color saturation.
• 02:56 I'm gonna select this orange wedge, and
• 02:59 I've selected it once, which selects the entire chart.
• 03:02 You can see it says, Format Data Series.
• 03:05 If I select it again it will now tell me to format data point.
• 03:09 And what I'm going to do is click on the paint bucket icon.
• 03:12 And I'm going to go to border.
• 03:14 And I'm going to choose to use a solid line.
• 03:17 And for this one, I think I'm gonna use a red line.
• 03:22 And then I'm gonna go and wipe out the fill area.
• 03:28 And then I'm gonna select the next point.
• 03:31 And wipe out the fill area which of course,
• 03:35 gets rid of everything because it doesn't have the solid line for a border.
• 03:40 I'm gonna set that one to blue.
• 03:44 Now at this point I have a lot less color in the chart and that's really helpful.
• 03:48 But there's still some other things I'd like to do.
• 03:50 So if I click on series options, you'll notice this takes me back to
• 03:54 another area where I can play around with the point explosion.
• 03:57 And what I'm gonna do now is just dial this up a little bit to get that
• 04:00 wedge out so that I can see it.
• 04:02 So I'm gonna take it out to about 15%.
• 04:04 And at this point, this chart's actually not super, super bad.
• 04:08 It's still not the way that I would prefer to see it.
• 04:11 I'd rather have a column chart, but at the end of the day
• 04:14 what I've actually got now is a chart that I can play around with.
• 04:17 I'm also gonna move this legend a little bit while I think about it and
• 04:20 we're gonna move this to the right.
• 04:22 So it let it shows up on the side here, and
• 04:24 now I can actually drop the size of my chart down.
• 04:27 I can make it much smaller if I wanted to.
• 04:30 The key lesson that I wanna portray here is that, if you've actually got a chart,
• 04:34 that you have to have a pie chart out there, for any reason.
• 04:37 You must put the percentages on it, so that people can actually understand.
• 04:41 Maybe you want the values instead.
• 04:43 I also recommend that you get rid of those filler areas, and put a border on it,
• 04:46 because it removes that color saturation.
• 04:49 I can now go and resize this chart down.
• 04:53 And I can have this sit in the corner somewhere and I can still focus on
• 04:57 the values over here without having this constantly clobbering me for attention.
• 05:01 If it was a dark color saturation fills on those things,
• 05:04 it would constantly be calling your attention back to it.
• 05:07 So that's one of the ways, if I'm going to use a pie chart for any reason,
• 05:10 that I will actually treat it so that it's not quite as obnoxious.

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