How to Create a Doughnut Chart in Excel

A doughnut chart is a great way to show how different parts make up a whole, similar to a pie chart but with a useful twist. You've probably seen them used for budget breakdowns, website traffic sources, or survey results. This tutorial will walk you through exactly how to create and customize a beautiful doughnut chart in Excel, so you can turn your raw numbers into a clear and compelling visual.

What is a Doughnut Chart and When Should You Use It?

Think of a doughnut chart as the slightly more modern cousin of the classic pie chart. It displays data in rings, where each segment of the ring represents a proportion of the total. The open space in the middle isn't just for looks - it's a perfect spot to display a key piece of information, like the total value of all the segments or a headline KPI.

Doughnut charts are champions of simplicity. Their primary job is to communicate a "part-to-whole" relationship. Here are the best times to use one:

• When you have a few categories: They work best with 2 to 5 categories. Any more, and the slices become too small and difficult to compare.
• To highlight proportions: If your main goal is to show the percentage-based contribution of each category - like what percentage of sales comes from each region - a doughnut chart is perfect.
• When the total number matters: The center hole is prime real estate. You can place the total number of website visitors, total revenue, or the total number of survey respondents right in the middle, giving context to the surrounding percentages.

However, it's just as important to know when not to use one. Avoid doughnut charts if you need to compare the values of different categories with high precision or if you're trying to show changes over time. A bar chart or line chart would be a better fit for those jobs.

How to Create a Doughnut Chart in Excel (Step-by-Step)

Let's get down to business. Building a basic doughnut chart is surprisingly quick. We'll use a common marketing example: showing the sources of website traffic for a month.

Step 1: Set Up Your Data

First, you need to structure your data correctly. All you need are two columns: one for the category names (the labels for your slices) and one for their corresponding values. Make it clean, simple, and easy to read.

Here’s our sample data:

Step 2: Insert the Doughnut Chart

Once your data is ready, the next couple of clicks will bring your chart to life.

1. Highlight the entire data range, including the headers (in our example, A1 to B6).
2. Go to the Insert tab on Excel’s ribbon.
3. In the Charts section, click on the icon that looks like a pie chart ('Insert Pie or Doughnut Chart').
4. From the dropdown menu, select the doughnut icon.

And just like that, Excel will drop a default doughnut chart onto your worksheet. It’s a great start, but it probably looks a bit plain. Now it's time to customize it to make it look professional.

Making Your Doughnut Chart Look Professional

A default chart gets the point across, but a well-formatted chart tells a story. Here’s how to polish your chart to turn it from a basic visual into a powerful insight.

Clean Up the Chart Elements

First, let's tidy things up. Click on the chart, and you'll see a '+' icon appear on the right side. This is the 'Chart Elements' button. You can use it to add or remove elements like the chart title and the legend.

• Chart Title: Give your chart a clear, descriptive title like "Website Traffic by Source - October."
• Legend: The legend is often useful, but if you're adding data labels directly onto the slices, you might not need it. Removing it can give your chart more breathing room. You can also move it to the top, bottom, or side depending on what looks best.

Customize Colors and Style

Excel’s default color palette is okay, but using custom colors - especially your brand colors - can really make your report look sharp.

To change the color of the entire chart, simply click on the chart, go to the Chart Design tab, and click Change Colors. To change the color of an individual slice, double-click on that specific slice to select it. Then, right-click, choose Fill, and select your desired color.

Pro Tip: Use a standout, high-contrast color for the most important slice you want to draw attention to. For example, if 'Organic Search' is your most important channel, give it your primary brand color.

Add and Format Data Labels

Data labels are crucial for making your doughnut chart easy to understand at a glance. They place the numbers directly on the chart itself.

1. Click the '+' icon again and check the box next to Data Labels.
2. To customize them, click the small arrow next to Data Labels and select More Options... This opens the Format Data Labels pane.
3. Here, you can choose what to show: Category Name, Value, or Percentage. Showing the Category Name and the Percentage is often the most effective combination.
4. You can also change the number format (e.g., set decimals for the percentage), the position of the labels, and the font color and size to ensure easy readability against the slice colors. Bolding the text is also a good final touch.

Adjust the Hole Size

You can control the size of the hole in the middle. A smaller hole makes it look more like a pie chart, while a larger hole thins out the ring.

1. Right-click on any slice of the doughnut and select Format Data Series...
2. In the pane that appears, you’ll see a slider for Doughnut Hole Size.
3. Drag the slider to adjust. A size between 60% and 75% usually looks good, providing enough space for a title in the middle without making the rings too thin.

Add a Total or KPI in the Center

This is one of the coolest features of a doughnut chart. Adding a key number in the center provides immediate context. Excel doesn't have a direct button for this, but it's easy to do with a text box.

1. With your chart selected, go to the Insert tab, then navigate to Text > Text Box.
2. Draw a text box in the center of your chart.
3. Type in your total value (in our example, the total sessions are 5,880). You could also add an informative summary like “Total Website Sessions.”
4. Format the text of the number to be large and bold, with a smaller, subtle label underneath (e.g., 'Total Sessions').

Advanced Technique: The Multi-Level Doughnut Chart

Want to take your skills up a notch? You can create a multi-level doughnut chart to show categories and sub-categories in one complete view. It’s perfect for breaking down a main category further. For instance, you could show traffic sources on the outer ring and break each one down into 'New vs. Returning' visitors on the inner ring.

Setting this up requires careful data preparation. You'd set up your data with a main category and then your sub-categories, ensuring the total of the sub-categories adds up to the main categories. You then create the first doughnut chart on your main data, right-click the chart, choose 'Select Data,' and add a second series for your sub-category data. Both will be plotted together and with some careful color coordination, a multi-level doughnut can powerfully display layered data.

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Doughnut Charts

Doughnut charts are effective visualization tools, but they’re also easy to misuse. Here are a few common pitfalls to watch out for:

• Too many slices: If you have more than five to seven categories, your chart will look cluttered and be difficult to read. In this case, group the smallest categories into an 'Other' slice to keep things clean.
• Comparing multiple charts: The human eye is not good at comparing the arc lengths of different doughnut charts side-by-side. If you need to compare proportional data (e.g., market share this year vs. last year), a stacked bar chart is a much better choice.
• Using it for trends: Doughnut charts show a static snapshot in time. To show a value changing over time (e.g., traffic month-over-month), always use a line chart.

Final Thoughts

Creating a polished doughnut chart in Excel is a straightforward process that involves organizing your data, inserting the chart, and then formatting it with care. Taking the time to customize elements like colors, labels, and the center text can transform your chart from a simple graphic into a clear and insightful analysis tool that grabs your audience's attention.

While Excel is fantastic for one-off charts, the process of constantly exporting CSVs, cleaning them up, and rebuilding reports on a weekly basis can be draining. At Graphed you, we created a solution to automate all that manual work. You connect your data sources like Google Analytics, Shopify, or Facebook Ads just once, and from there you can generate real-time dashboards and reports simply by asking questions in plain English. No more pivot tables or VLOOKUPS - just clear, instant answers.