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In Excel 2003, click on the Options tab and change the Angle of First Slice.
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Drag that wedge away from the center of the pie.Now, only that one data point is selected. Create a regular (unexploded) pie chart.Rather than exploding the entire pie, it is more interesting to explode one slice of the pie. Instead, use a 2-D pie, where 30% looks like 30% whether it is at the top or the bottom: Here, both pies in this image have 30% for Labor, but the lower pie has 107% more dark blue pixels. Which ever slice is in the front appears much larger. What if you need to show changing pies over time? Switch to a stacked bar chart:Īvoid 3-D Pie charts. Also, some cool tricks for sweeter pie charts.Ī pie chart should be used to show components that add up to a whole: In this segment, we will take a look at when you should use a pie chart and when you should not. Way too many charts rely on the pie chart.
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