How to Make a Pie Chart in Google Sheets (Step-by-Step)

How to Make a Pie Chart in Google Sheets – Step-by-Step Video Tutorial:

Pie charts are a great way to visually represent data because they are easy to create and analyze.

You can create your own pie chart on Google Sheets very easily. Google Sheets also provides you with different editing features to customize your pie chart to whatever suits your needs.

Let’s take a look at how to make a pie chart in Google Sheets since it’s free software to use.

How Do I Make a Pie Chart in Google Sheets in 2023?

We’re going to look at step-by-step directions for how to how to do a pie chart in Google Sheets. Then we’ll look at some additional steps you can take and some cool customization that you can do too!

Keep in mind that a pie chart is used to compare things within the same larger category. In this example, we’re going to make a mock budget and compare the costs.

Our pie chart is going to show what chunk of our monthly budget goes to different categories such as food costs, rent, and student loan payments.

Below is the dataset that we will be using to create a pie chart:

You’ll notice this is a two-column pie chart, and your data might look similar, but it can be done with any data in the cells.

Without further ado, here’s our guide for creating a pie chart in Google Sheets:

1. Go to the Google Sheets that has the data (of course)
2. Select the cells for which you want to create the pie chart.

3. With the data selected, navigate to the top bar, and click on the Insert option in the menu

4. Click on the Chart option. It’s important that during your clicking you don’t accidentally click an empty cell because it will un-select the data you want to make a chart of.

The above steps would make Google Sheets use some assumptions and try to guess what type of chart you want to insert.

In this case, we got lucky and it knew we wanted a pie chart. You’ll notice that our data is still selected, and now there’s a big pie chart next to it.

The above picture was taken right after I left clicked “Chart” with my data highlighted. In other words, this is my default chart that was generated.

We can see that each category is a different color, there’s a leader pointing to them with a label, and the chart is titled “Amount”.

But, what happens if it doesn’t guess correctly or you need to change the chart type?

You have a few options.

Left-clicking the chart will highlight the whole chart area blue and you’ll get three dots in the top right corner of the chart. When you click those three dots you get some options.

Now you’ll see you can edit the chart. Clicking on the Edit chart option will open the Chart Editor pane on the right.

If you haven’t got the Pie chart as your default chart, you can change it by clicking on the Chart Type option (in the Setup tab). As you scroll down you’ll pass options like Line, Area, Column, Bar, and Pie. Clicking on “Pie Chart” will convert your chart to a pie chart if it isn’t already.

Once you have inserted the default pie graph, you can easily edit and customize it to suit your needs.

Editing the Pie Chart

Now you know how to create a pie chart in Google Sheets, but what if the automatically generated pie chart isn’t exactly what you’re looking for?

Good news. You can customize and edit a ton of options on your chart.

Let’s take a look at what we can do.

The way to start customizing is to left-click your chart, click the three dots that appear in the top right of the chart, and click “Edit chart”.

That will open a Chart Editor side window that shows some options that looks like this:

Changing the Data Range

If you messed up when you first made the pie chart and you picked the wrong cells, that’s not a problem.

Simply click the box to the right of “Data Range” and it will open this box:

You can now choose a new range by either holding left click and highlight the cells in the workbook, or you can manually type it in the box.

Changing the data range will automatically change your pie chart.

Change the Label on Your Pie Chart

You’ll notice the option to change the label as well in this same menu.

In our example, it doesn’t make sense to change the label, as there are only two columns, where one column has cost values that are plotted as the pie slices.

But in case you need to change the labels (and maybe use some other labels in a different data range), you can do that from here.

How to Make a Pie Chart in Google Sheets Look Better

The final piece of customization you should look at is the ability to change the aesthetics of your pie chart.

What does this mean?

Well, you can change the colors, make it 3D, add a legend, change around the titles and labels, and add a donut hole.

This is found under the same side-panel menu that we were looking at before, but now we’re going to click Customize.

Changing Chart Style of Pie Chart

After clicking the “Chart style” option, the arrow will open the category to show us some options we can change.

You can change the following things in the chart using these options:

• The background color of the pie chart
• The border color of the chart. In case you don’t need a border for the chart, you can remove it by setting the chart border color to ‘none’
• Change the font style of the text.

How to Make a 3D Pie Chart in Google Sheets

To make a 3D pie chart:

1. Select your data range
2. Go to Insert > Chart.
3. In the chart editor, go to Setup and click on the drop-down for chart type.

4. Scroll to pie charts and choose the 3D pie chart.

This will create a 3D pie chart based on the data you selected.

There is also an option to convert the normal chart into a 3-D pie chart. Here’s how:

1. Open the chart editor by going to the menu and selecting Edit. You can also do this by double-clicking on your pie chart.
2. Go to Customize > Chart Style.

3. Check on the box for “3D”

Your pie chart will become 3D. However, keep in mind that a 3-D pie chart can often be misleading and hard to read.

Customizing the Pie Chart Option

The next option in our customization menu is “Pie Chart”. Clicking it will drop down a list of options.

Here again, you will find some interesting options;

• Donut hole: This is where you can convert this pie chart into a donut chart. Just specify the value of the Donut hole, and it will add a hole with that much space taken off from the center of the pie chart.
• You can also change the border color of each slice using the ‘Border color‘ option
• And then there is an option to add a label to each slice

How Do I Add Percentages to a Pie Chart in Google Sheets?

When you create your pie chart in Google Sheets you’ll notice that it automatically comes with percentages. However, in case this doesn’t happen, here’s how you can make a pie chart with percentages in Google Sheets:

1. Open the chart editor by double-clicking on the pie chart.
2. Go to Customize > Pie chart.

3. Go to the Slice Label drop-down
4. Choose Percentage

The percentage for each slice will appear in the pie chart.

Changing Pie Slice on Pie Chart

With the Pie chart, you can also make one of the slices stand out by making it protrude slightly outside the pie graph.

Something as shown below, where I have made the car slice a bit more prominent by making it stand out (literally) from the rest of the Pie chart.

This can be done from the Pie slice settings in the Chart Editor.

Here is how to do this:

1. Click on the Customize tab in the Chart Editor
2. Click on the Pie Slice option. This will make it expand and show more options
3. Click on the drop-down and select the category that you want to highlight
4. Change the color of the pie (optional). you can use this option to make the color bright and something that stands out.
5. Select the distance from the center option. Apart from selecting from the pre-existing options, you can also manually enter the value (for example 10%).

Exporting a Pie Chart

To export your chart:

1. Click on the 3 dots menu on the chart
2. Click Download
3. Select the file type you wish to download the chart as

How Do You Make a Double Pie Chart in Google Sheets?

There isn’t a native double pie chart in Google Sheets. However, you can make a smaller donut chart fit inside a larger one for a similar effect. Here’s how to make a double pie graph in Google Sheets:

1. Navigate to Insert > Chart > Chart type > Doughnut chart
2. Click on the Customise tab
3. In the Chart style > Background color menu, select none
4. In Pie chart > select Doughnut hole 75%
5. Repeat for the second donut chart but make the hole 25% instead
6. Adjust the sizes of the charts and place them together.

How Do You Make a Pie Chart in Google Sheets on iPhone and Android?

You can also make pie charts in the Google Sheets mobile apps. Here’s how to make a pie chart on Google Sheets for mobile:

1. Highlight the cells for your chart
2. Tap Insert + > Chart
3. Tap Type
4. Tap Pie chart
5. Tap Done

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you make a pie chart in Google Sheets?

Making a pie chart in Google Sheets is pretty easy:

1. Select your data range
2. Go to Insert > Chart
3. Select Pie chart

How Do I Show Percentages in a Pie Chart in Google Sheets?

To show percentages in a pie chart in Google Sheets:

5. Open the chart editor by double-clicking on the pie chart.
6. Go to Customize > Pie chart
7. Go to the Label drop-down
8. Choose Percentage

How Do I Make a Pie Chart with Multiple Columns in Google Sheets?

To make a pie chart with multiple columns all you need to do is select the range of data you want to use. However, note that you can only represent one column of data at a time in a pie chart.

An option you have is making two donut pie charts for each column and combining them by putting the smaller one in the larger donut.

1. Make two donut pie charts for each data.
2. Go to Chart edtior > Customize.
3. Go to Chart style > Background color and choose None. Do the same for the second pie chart.
4. Choose the pie chart you want to be outside and change its donut hole to 75% in Customize > Pie chart.
5. Resize the inner pie chart and position it in the middle of the larger one.

Keep Calm and Keep Charting

Now you know how to make a pie chart in Google Sheets. The actual creation of the chart is just a few quick steps that we looked at earlier.

The customization options are a lot more interesting and we covered some of the more relevant options you have.

If you’d like to master Google Sheets and Forms as soon as possible, consider checking out our comprehensive course.

When it comes to showing data, a pie chart is a great option. Yet, there’s still plenty more to learn, check out our other charting guides, such as:

• How to Create a Combo Chart in Google Sheets
• How to Create a Funnel Chart in Google Sheets [Step-by-Step]
• Easy Step-By-Step Radar Chart Google Sheets Guide
• The Pareto Chart Google Sheets Guide: 3 Easy Steps
• Creating Candlestick Chart in Google Sheets (Step-by-step)
• Easy Bubble Chart Google Sheets Guide (Free Template)