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Excel 2007 Practice: Adding Data Labels to a Pie Chart

This project starts with the file made in Create a Quick & Easy Pie Chart and continues with Change Color and Explode a Pie Chart.

This practice is about Legends and Data Labels, which are both chart features that help identify the “slices” in the pie chart. In a default Excel chart, a Legend is included. These directions will go through the steps to remove the Legend and use Data Labels instead.

Data Labels will appear next to each slice, rather than off to the side like the Legend. A couple advantages of making this change is that it makes the chart easier to read in print, particularly if printing in grayscale or black and white. Also, by having the labels next to each slice it increases readability; at a glance you get what each slice represents. You will also have the Data Labels display percentages, which will make the chart even easier to comprehend.

Remember that the only place to look in Excel for chart features is in the Chart Tools tab, which is only available when a chart is selected. The Chart Tools tab includes Design, Layout and Format tabs. Outside of text formatting, like font style and size, everything to do with charts is in these tabs.

Turn Off the Legend

The Legend is a box that sits to the side of the chart that identifies each of the Pie Chart slices by slice color. Everything you can change about the Legend can be done through Chart Tools, Layout tab, Labels group, Legend button.

1. Single-click the chart to select it, and in Chart Tools, Layout tab, Labels group, click the Legend button and choose None.

Turn On Data Labels

1. Right next to the Legend button, you should see the Data Labels button. Click it, and at the bottom of the list choose More Data Label Options.
2. In the Format Data Labels box, choose Label Options in the left pane, if necessary. In Label Options click to check Category Name and Percentage, click to uncheck Value.
3. In the Label Position section, choose Outside End. This will place the % and Name outside of the pie, so the overall pie chart may need to be sized larger to accommodate the data labels.
4. Close to finish.

Resize the chart larger if it looks too crowded, and that’s all you need to do to replace a Legend with Data Labels.

Optional Step: Rotate the Chart

You might want to rotate the chart, to make the Data Labels more readable or to make the entire chart look balanced.

1. Right-click on the pie, and choose Format Data Series.
2. In the Format Data Series box, be sure Series Options is chosen in the left pane. Under Angle of first slice, drag the slider or type in a number to rotate the chart to the right. For this project, try 70 as the rotation number. If you type in the number, you will have to push Enter to see the chart change. (Hint: if you move the Format Data Series box to the side, you can see the chart rotate as you adjust the slider or number. You can click and drag on the box title bar, where it says Format Data Series, to move it.)
3. Close to finish.

Not too difficult, is it? The hardest part of learning any part of a software program is finding the features and understanding what they are for. Hopefully this will help with understanding a bit more about pie charts.

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