Excel Doughnut chart

Excel Doughnut chart (Table of Contents)

• Doughnut Chart in Excel
• How to Create Doughnut Charts in Excel?

Doughnut Chart in Excel

Doughnut chart is a built-in feature in excel. It is used to represent the proportion of data where the total should be 100%. It looks little similar to a pie chart with a hole.

How to Create Doughnut Charts in Excel?

Now we will see How to Create a Doughnut Charts in Excel. We will see How to create different types of Doughnut Charts in Excel like Doughnut Chart with Single data series, Double Doughnut Chart and Doughnut Chart with Multiple data series and how to modify them with some examples.

Doughnut Chart in Excel – Example #1

Single Doughnut Charts in Excel

Consider a project which has three stages like completed, work InProgress, Incomplete. We will create a doughnut chart to represent the project status percentage wise.

Consider the example of the above status of the project and will create a doughnut chart for that. Select the data table and click on the Insert menu. Under charts, select the Doughnut chart.

The chart will look like below.

Now click on the + symbol that appears top right of the chart which will open the popup. Untick the Chart Title and Legend to remove the text in the chart.

Once you do that the chart will look like below.

Now we will format the chart. Select the chart and right click a pop-up menu will appear. From that select the Format Data Series.

When clicking on Format Data series a format menu appears at the right side.

From the “Format Data series” menu reduce the Doughnut Hole Size. Currently, it is 75% now reduce to 50%.

Now to input, the percentage text selects the Doughnut Then click on Shapes under Illustrations option from Insert menu and select Rectangle box.

Now click on the inserted rectangle shape and select the Text box which is shown in the below picture.

Now give the formula to represent the status of the project. For that input = (equal sign) in the text box and select the cell which shows the value of completed status that is B2.

Now we should format that text. Right click on the text and select the format. Select the Fill and select No Fill then the blue color will disappear.

Now apply a format to the text as per your doughnut color for that particular field. Now it is showing in Orange color, hence we will set the text color also in “Orange”.

Select the text and right-click from the pop-up select the formatting data series and a menu will appear on the right side. From the right-side menu select “Text options” and change the color to “Orange”.

Similarly, input the text for incomplete and work inprogess.

Now change the percentages and see how the chart changes.

We can observe the changes in the chart and text. If we input the formula in “Incomplete” like 100%-completed-Work InProgress. So that Incomplete will pick automatically.

Doughnut Chart in Excel – Example #2

Double Doughnut Chart in Excel

With the help of a double doughnut chart, we can show the two matrices in our chart. Let’s take an example of sales of a company.

Here we are considering two years sales as shown below for the products X, Y, and Z.

Now we will create a doughnut chart as similar to the previous single doughnut chart. Select the data alone without headers as shown in the below image. Click on the Insert menu. Go to charts select the PIE chart drop down menu. From Drop down select the doughnut symbol.

Then the below chart will appear on the screen with two doughnut rings.

To reduce the doughnuts hole size, select the doughnuts and right click and then select Format data series. Now we can find the option Doughnut Hole Size at the bottom where you drag the percentage to reduce.

If we want to change the angle of the doughnut change the settings of “Angle of first slice”. We can observe the difference between the 0 degrees and 90 degrees.

If we want to increase the gap between the rings, adjust the Doughnut Explosion. Observe the below image for reference.

If we want to add the shadow, select the middle option which is highlighted. select the required Shadow option.

After applying the shadow we can adjust the shadow related options like Color, Transparency, size etc.

If we want to apply the color shadow use the menu Glow at the bottom of the “shadow” menu. As per selected color, the shadow will appear.

If we want to increase the softness of the edges, change the settings of softness by selecting Soft Edges at the bottom of Glow menu.

If we want a different color, then select the particular ring in which we want to change the color. To identify which ring you selected to observe the data (Data will highlight as per your ring selection). Observe the below image, only the year 2018 is highlighted.

Select the particular part of the selected ring and change the color as per your requirement. Please find the color box which is highlighted.

If we want to add the border to the ring, select the ring or part of the ring in which you want to add a border. Go to option Fill and line. Select the solid line and then change the required color for the border.

After applying the border to the selected rings, results will look as shown below.

We can adjust the Width, Transparency, Dash type etc as per your requirements.

If we want to fill a single color for the entire ring, then deselect the option which is highlighted.

If we want the data figures on the ring then, select the ring and right click select the option Add Data Labels.

Then the data labels will appear on the ring as shown below.

Doughnut Chart in Excel – Example #3

Multiple Doughnut Charts in Excel

Multiple doughnut charts are also created in a similar way the only thing required to create a multiple doughnut is multiple matrices. For example in the double doughnut we have two years data if we have 3 or 4 years data then we can create multiple doughnut charts.

Things to Remember 

• Doughnut charts are similar to Pie charts which has a hole in the center.
• Doughnut charts help to create a visualization with single matrices, double and multiple matrices.
• It mostly helps to create a chart for a total of 100 percent matrices.
• It is possible to create single doughnut, double doughnut, and multiple doughnut charts.

Recommended Articles

This has been a guide to Doughnut Chart in Excel. Here we discussed How to Create Doughnut Chart in Excel and Types of Doughnut Charts in Excel along with practical examples and downloadable excel template. You can also go through our other suggested articles –

1. Pie Chart in Excel
2. Excel Data Bars
3. Excel Line Chart
4. Marimekko Chart Excel