{"id":1799,"date":"2012-10-02T16:31:15","date_gmt":"2012-10-02T16:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.microsofttraining.net\/b\/exceltraining\/?p=693"},"modified":"2023-12-30T23:12:17","modified_gmt":"2023-12-30T23:12:17","slug":"excel-charts-2010-a-beginners-guide-to-creating-a-pie-chart-without-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/excel-charts-2010-a-beginners-guide-to-creating-a-pie-chart-without-pain\/","title":{"rendered":"Excel Charts &#8211; beginner&#8217;s guide to creating a pie chart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m new to the charting side of things&#8230;I&#8217;m used to staring at numbers on worksheets and trying to figure out what it all means&#8230;and admiring those around me who use charts&#8230;so mysterious&#8230;so professional looking&#8230;so much nicer than my rows of figures.<\/p>\n<p>Charts make it so much easier to spot trends and analyse data &#8211; and I felt that the time had come to take a bite of that pie. \u00a0The idea of adding a chart filled me with a sense of dread&#8230;so I decided to \u00a0experiment with some basic charting to prove that it was possible to do, and all without the aid of several cups of coffee and a pep talk.<\/p>\n<p>So here&#8217;s what I did. \u00a0As a simple example, I decided to look at how a pie chart could represent the cost of items in a range of categories for a (fictional) home office.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_694\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-694\" style=\"width: 251px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/exceltraining\/files\/2012\/10\/data-to-make-simple-chart.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-694\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/exceltraining\/files\/2012\/10\/data-to-make-simple-chart.png\" alt=\"data-to-make-simple-chart-for-excel\" width=\"251\" height=\"157\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-694\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Basic data for creating a small home office<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I can show this data in a more visual way using a chart. \u00a0I can access charting options via the Insert ribbon. The first step is to decide on \u00a0the kind of chart I want, so I&#8217;m opting for a pie chart to make it easier to compare the proportional costs involved.<\/p>\n<p>So, I select the data above and then go to the Insert ribbon, and click on the Pie Chart icon. \u00a0 Because I&#8217;m feeling particularly brave, I&#8217;ve opted for the 3D pie chart&#8230;and it looks like this&#8230;.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_695\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-695\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/exceltraining\/files\/2012\/10\/example-of-3d-piechart-cost-comparison-excel-training-intro-level.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-695\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/exceltraining\/files\/2012\/10\/example-of-3d-piechart-cost-comparison-excel-training-intro-level-300x237.png\" alt=\"example-of-3d-piechart-cost-comparison-excel-training-intro-level\" width=\"300\" height=\"237\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-695\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Here is my first attempt at using a 3D pie chart to show the costs involved in creating a home office.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It is a basic example, but it proved to me how easy it was to insert a chart &#8211; it took less than a minute to do. \u00a0Now&#8230;what can I chart next&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m new to the charting side of things&#8230;I&#8217;m used to staring at numbers on worksheets and trying to figure out what it all means&#8230;and admiring those around me who use charts&#8230;so mysterious&#8230;so professional looking&#8230;so much nicer than my rows of figures. Charts make it so much easier to spot trends and analyse data &#8211; and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[172,174],"class_list":["post-1799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excel-training","tag-excel-how-to","tag-excel-2010-courses"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6726,"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1799\/revisions\/6726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}