Pie chart maker
Give each slice a label and a value. The percentages are worked out for you and printed on the chart.
One row per slice: a name, then a number. The shares are worked out for you.
Drawing…
| Slice | Value | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Rent | 1,200 | 57.7% |
| Food | 480 | 23.1% |
| Transport | 190 | 9.1% |
| Books | 120 | 5.8% |
| Other | 90 | 4.3% |
| Total | 2,080 | 100% |
How to use it
- Step 1Put a label and a number on each line — the categories and how much each one is.
- Step 2Choose what the slices say: percentages, the values themselves, or both; and cut the middle out if you want a donut.
- Step 3Download the chart as a PNG or an SVG, or make a link to send it as a page.
The shares are worked out for you
Type the raw amounts — dollars, hours, votes, students — and the page turns them into shares of the total. There is no need to work the percentages out first, and no need for them to add up to 100: the total of what you type is the whole circle, whatever it is. The table under the chart lists each slice with its value and its percentage, so the numbers behind the picture are there to copy.
Values of zero or less are left out and counted in a note. A slice cannot be negative, and one that is zero would be an invisible line on the edge of the circle.
When a pie chart is the wrong chart
A pie works when a few parts make up one whole and one of them is obviously the biggest. It stops working when there are many slices — the human eye compares angles badly, and past six or seven categories a bar chart answers “which is bigger” faster and more accurately. It also fails when two slices are nearly equal: the labels tell you which is larger, the picture does not.
The other rule is that the parts must belong to the same whole. Categories that overlap, or a list that leaves things out, produce a circle that claims to be everything while being only some of it.
Colors and the ninth slice
The palette is eight colors chosen to stay distinguishable for colorblind readers, and every slice carries its name in the legend as well as its color, so the chart still works in black and white. Past eight categories the colors would have to repeat and two different slices would look the same, so the smallest ones are added together into a slice called “Other” and the page says how many went into it.
Questions and answers
How do I make a pie chart from my own numbers?
Type each label and its value on a line, or paste two columns from a spreadsheet. The shares are worked out for you and the chart is ready to download.
Do my numbers have to add up to 100?
No. Type the raw amounts and the page turns them into percentages of whatever the total comes to.
How many slices are too many?
More than six or seven and a reader stops being able to compare them by eye. This page draws at most eight colored slices and gathers the rest into “Other”; if you have more categories than that and they all matter, a bar graph will serve you better.
Can I make a donut chart?
Yes — tick “Cut the middle out”. It is the same chart with a hole in it, and it reads the same way.