How to Make a Circle Graph in Excel

Making a circle graph in Excel is a quick visual trick to show how different parts make up a whole. Often called a pie chart, this classic visualization is perfect for breaking down things like your marketing budget, website traffic sources, or sales by product category. This tutorial will walk you through exactly how to create and customize a circle graph in Excel, plus share a few pro tips for making your data clear and compelling.

Understanding When to Use a Circle Graph (and When to Avoid It)

Before you jump into Excel, it's helpful to know when a circle graph is the right choice. Their strength is in displaying composition - in other words, showing the percentage breakdown of a single total category.

A good circle graph usually follows these simple rules:

• It Represents Parts of a Whole: The classic use case. Each "slice" represents a portion of 100%. If your numbers don't add up to a meaningful total, a pie chart isn't the right fit. For example, you can show revenue by region because all regions add up to total revenue.

• It Has a Limited Number of Categories: Circle graphs get messy and hard to read when you slice them too many times. Aim for six categories or fewer. Anymore than that, and you end up with tiny, illegible slivers.

• The Focus is on Comparing Parts to the Whole: They are great for answering questions like, "What percentage of our traffic comes from organic search?" but less effective for comparing two slices directly against each other. It's surprisingly hard for the human eye to accurately judge which angle is bigger.

When should you skip the circle graph? Avoid them for tracking changes over time (a line chart is better) or for comparing values across different categories (a bar chart is more direct and easier to read).

Step-by-Step Guide: Making Your First Pie Chart in Excel

Ready to build one? Let's use a common marketing example: analyzing website traffic sources for a month.

Step 1: Get Your Data Ready

First, you need to organize your data into two simple columns. One column should have your categories, and the adjacent column should contain the numerical values for each of those categories. These values should be raw numbers, not percentages - Excel will calculate the percentages for you.

Your data should look something like this:

Notice that we have the labels (the channels) in one column and their corresponding values (the sessions) in the next.

Step 2: Select Your Data

Click and drag your mouse to highlight the entire data set you want to visualize. Be sure to include both the column headers ("Marketing Channel" and "Sessions") and all the data rows. Including the headers tells Excel what to label your chart automatically.

Step 3: Insert the Circle Graph

With your data highlighted, follow these clicks:

1. Navigate to the Insert tab on the Excel ribbon.

2. In the Charts section, look for an icon that looks like a pie chart. Click on it.

3. A dropdown menu will appear with several options, including 2-D Pie, 3-D Pie, and Doughnut.

For maximum clarity, it's almost always best to choose the standard 2-D Pie. While 3-D charts can look stylish, they can also distort the proportions of the slices, making the data misleading. With that click, Excel will instantly generate your circle graph and place it on your worksheet.

Making Your Circle Graph Look Professional

The default chart Excel gives you is a great starting point, but with a few quick tweaks, you can make it much easier to read and more professional-looking.

Add and Format Data Labels

Your audience shouldn't have to guess what each slice represents. This is where data labels come in.

1. Click on your newly created chart to select it.

2. You'll see a green plus icon (+) appear on the top right side. Click it to open the Chart Elements menu.

3. Check the box next to Data Labels. You'll see the raw numbers appear on each slice.

4. To turn these into percentages (which is often more useful), hover over Data Labels in the menu, click the small arrow that appears to the right, and then select More Options...

5. A "Format Data Labels" pane will open on the right side of your screen. Under "Label Options," uncheck "Value" and check "Percentage." You can also check "Category Name" to put the label directly on the slice, allowing you to remove the legend entirely for a cleaner look.

Choose an Appropriate Chart Title

Double-click the placeholder "Chart Title" at the top and give your graph a clear, descriptive name. Something like "Website Traffic by Source - April 2024" is much better than a generic title. It tells the reader exactly what they are looking at without any ambiguity.

Customize Colors and Styles

The default colors might not match your branding or make your data stand out. To change them:

• Quick Styles: With the chart selected, go to the Chart Design tab. You can choose different preset color palettes and visual styles from here.

• Changing a Single Slice: If you want to highlight a specific piece of the pie (like your most important traffic source), you can change its color. First, click once on the pie to select the whole chart. Then, click a second time on just the slice you want to change. Now, in the Format tab or by right-clicking, you can change the "Fill" color for just that piece.

Explode a Slice for Emphasis

Want to draw attention to one specific data point? You can "explode" a slice, which means separating it slightly from the rest of the pie.

To do this, click the pie chart once to select all slices. Then, click again on the one slice you want to pull out. Now, simply click and drag that slice away from the center. Use this effect sparingly to maintain its impact.

Think Beyond the Pie: Why a Donut Chart Might Be Better

Closely related to the pie chart is the Doughnut chart, and in many cases, it’s a better design choice. It's essentially a pie chart with the center cut out. Creating it is simple: when you go to Insert > Charts, just select "Doughnut" instead of "Pie."

Why use it?

• It's Easier to Read: Donut charts encourage readers to compare the length of the arcs rather than the angles of the slices. Our eyes are better at judging length, so it can make comparisons between slices slightly more accurate.

• It Offers a Clean Center Space: The hole in the middle isn't just for looks! It's valuable real estate. You can use this space to add a key piece of information, like the total number of sessions or the overall revenue figure. Simply insert a Text Box (Insert > Text Box) and place it in the center to add this context.

Common Pitfalls When Using Circle Graphs

As you build your own charts, watch out for these common missteps that can make your data confusing or misleading.

1. Too Many Slices: The biggest mistake people make is jamming too many categories into one chart. If you have more than about six slices, the chart becomes a jumble of thin slivers. For these situations, use a horizontal bar chart instead. It's much easier to read and compare many categories.

2. The Dreaded 3-D Effect: Avoid using 3-D effects. The perspective distorts the appearance of the slices, making the ones closest to the viewer appear larger than they actually are. It compromises data accuracy for a design flourish that isn't worth it. Sticking to 2-D is a data visualization best practice.

3. Comparing Two Pie Charts: Never try to show a trend or comparison by placing two circle graphs side-by-side. It is incredibly difficult for your viewers to compare slices across separate circles. A stacked bar chart or a line chart would be far more effective in this scenario.

A circle graph is at its best when it's simple, clean, and communicates one primary message about the composition of a total.

Final Thoughts

Creating circle graphs and pie charts in Excel is a straightforward process of formatting your data, inserting a chart, and customizing its elements for clarity. By keeping them simple and using them for their intended purpose - showing parts of a whole - you can build clean, effective visuals that help tell your data’s story.

While mastering Excel charts is a valuable skill for one-off analyses, building these reports over and over for different platforms can feel like a chore. As your data needs grow, you might find yourself manually downloading CSVs and building the same charts weekly. At Graphed , we created a way to skip the manual work entirely. We let you connect all your data sources - like Google Analytics, Shopify, or Salesforce - and then ask for the dashboards and reports you need in plain English. This turns hours of spreadsheet wrangling into a single sentence, so you can spend less time building charts and more time acting on the insights.