How to Show Percentage in Excel Pie Chart (3 Ways)

Adding the feature of percentage in a pie chart makes the data analysis in Excel more effective and understandable to readers. A pie chart represents a dataset or the result of an analysis proportionately. This feature of Excel is heavily used in daily calculations.

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3 Convenient Ways to Display Percentage in Pie Chart in Excel

To illustrate how to show percentages in a pie chart, we need to create one first. Here, we have the percentage of population by major ethnic groups in Southern California.

To create a pie chart-

• Select the dataset.
• Then go to the Insert tab from the Excel Ribbon.
• In the Chart tab, click on the Insert Pie button.
• Choose the first option of the 2-D Pie

The above steps created the following pie chart.

1. Use of Chart Styles to Show Percentage in Pie Chart in Excel

To show the percentage in our pie chart for each of the ethnic groups that made up the total population, let’s do the following-

Steps:

• First, click on the pie chart to active the edit mode.
• Then click the Chart Design tab from the Excel Ribbon.
• Choose the 3rd option from the Chart Styles options.

• The above steps now make the pie chart showing the percentages for each of the constituent parts.

• There are more Chart Styles options available that show the percentage data label.

Read More: How to Show Total in Excel Pie Chart (2 Effective Ways)

2. Display Percentage in Pie Chart by Using Format Data Labels

Another way of showing percentages in a pie chart is to use the Format Data Labels option. We can open the Format Data Labels window in the following two ways.

2.1 Using Chart Elements

To active the Format Data Labels window, follow the simple steps below.

Steps:

• Click on the pie chart to make it active.
• Now, click the Chart Elements button ( the Plus + sign at the top right corner of the pie chart).
• Click the Data Labels checkbox which is unchecked by

• After that, click the Right Arrow sign at the right of the Data Labels
• From the dropdown click on the More Options

• From the Format Data Labels window, click the Percentage checkbox.

Read More: Add Labels with Lines in an Excel Pie Chart (with Easy Steps)

2.2 Using Context Menu

We can also use the context menu to display percentages in a pie chart. Let’s follow the steps below.

Steps:

• Right-click on the pie chart to open the context menu.
• Choose the Add Data Labels

• Again right-click the pie chart to open the context menu.
• This time choose the Format Data Labels

• The above steps opened up the Format Data Labels
• Click the Percentage option to display percentages on the pie chart.

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3. Use of Quick Layout to Show Percentage in Pie Chart

This method is quick and effective to display percentages in a pie chart. Let’s follow the guide to accomplish this.

Steps:

• First, click on the pie chart to active the Chart Design tab.
• From the Chart Design tab choose the Quick Layout option.
• Choose the first layout that shows the percentage data label.

• The above steps added percentages to our pie chart.

Other Layouts

• The selection of Layout 2 resulted in this.

• Again, the selection of Layout 6 resulted in this.

Read More: Excel Pie Chart Labels on Slices: Add, Show & Modify Factors

Notes

If we select the Value option along with the Percentage option, the pie chart shows the actual value for each of the constituents in the dataset along with its portion in percentage.

Read More: How to Show Percentage and Value in Excel Pie Chart

Conclusion

Now, we know how to add percentages in the pie chart using 3 easy methods. Hopefully, it would encourage you to use this feature more confidently. Any questions or suggestions don’t forget to put them in the comment box below.

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