Donut Chart or Pie Chart: Check the Data Before Choosing

A donut chart and a pie chart both show how values divide a total. Use the same data and labels when comparing the two. A donut leaves space in the centre for a total, while a pie keeps the full circle. Neither is well suited to judging many small differences, so add values or choose a bar chart when those differences matter.

What the hole in a donut chart changes

In a pie, each slice has an angle, an arc and an area; a donut removes the centre but retains visible arcs. Do not assume that the hole makes close values easier to compare. If two categories are 23% and 26%, label those values directly so readers do not have to estimate the difference from the shapes.

The empty centre can be used for a total or a short annotation. The middle of a donut is a natural place for the total ("1,240 responses") or the headline number ("62% renewed"), which saves a separate caption and keeps the eye on the chart.

When a pie or donut chart is the right call

Use one when the parts genuinely add up to a meaningful whole, there are only a few of them, and the message is about share rather than exact size. Market share between three competitors, how a budget splits across four teams, yes versus no versus unsure. Two to five slices is the comfortable range.

Order the slices from largest to smallest, starting at twelve o'clock and going clockwise, unless the categories have their own order, like a rating scale. Label the values directly on or beside the slices; a legend that forces people to match colours back and forth is the most common reason these charts feel hard.

When neither works

If you have eight or ten categories, a sorted bar chart is easier to read than any circle. For a survey with multiple selections, shares of respondents may overlap and can add up to more than 100%. Use a bar chart for those percentages. If you instead chart shares of all selections, state that different denominator explicitly. And if you want to compare shares across several groups, say this year against last year, two donuts side by side require readers to compare slices across separate circles, which can be difficult when values are close. Use grouped bars for a direct comparison, or a stacked chart in a tool that supports it. The current ToCharts maker has grouped bars, but no stacked-bar mode.

Making one

Paste two columns into the pie chart maker, the categories and their values, and switch between pie and donut to see which you prefer for the slide. It uses the first value column, since a single circle can only show one series. Download it as PNG for slides or SVG for documents, and put the total in your title or caption so readers know what 100 percent means.

What this can't do yet

The maker uses the first numeric column for one pie or donut at a time. It does not determine whether your categories form a meaningful whole. It displays a total in the donut centre but does not offer a custom centre-text editor. Export is limited to what the in-browser chart maker renders; there is no server-side batch chart generation API.