# How do I make a pie chart in Excel,

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-a-pie-chart-in-excel/721885>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 7, 2015, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-a-pie-chart-in-excel/721885 "2015-06-07T13:48:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-a-pie-chart-in-excel/721885/1 "2015-06-07T13:48:58Z")

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I know very little about Excel.

I want to make a pie chart showing the party distribution in the House of Commons in a particular year, which I’ll then import to a Power Point presentation.

But I have no idea how to do that. I’ve not found MS’s “help” pages to be very helpful.

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**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-a-pie-chart-in-excel/721885/2 "2015-06-07T13:50:07Z")

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Also, I will want to assign colours to the wedges of the pie to match the traditional party colours. How can I do that?

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**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-a-pie-chart-in-excel/721885/3 "2015-06-07T15:18:49Z")

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Select the data and then click the pie chart button.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-a-pie-chart-in-excel/721885/4 "2015-06-07T15:33:36Z")

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How do I set up the data? A single column with the number of seats?  
How do I add the names of the parties so they are on the chart?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-a-pie-chart-in-excel/721885/5 "2015-06-07T15:51:45Z")

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It doesn’t matter how you put the data in.

Right clicking the chart will give you options to change colors and names. Spend one minute looking at the options and you’ll see all of this stuff.

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**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2015, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-i-make-a-pie-chart-in-excel/721885/6 "2015-06-07T15:58:48Z")

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> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> How do I set up the data? A single column with the number of seats?  
> How do I add the names of the parties so they are on the chart?

I think you need two columns; one showing the name of the parties, and the second showing the number of seats held by each.