Pie Chart Only Includes Up to 9 Values

Is there any way of changing this, maybe a box I can uncheck or something? I have a list of 18 numbers I would like to put into a pie chart, but it will only go up to 9.

Originally Posted by teylyn

Excel does not have a limit for the number of points in a pie chart. Unfortunately.

Did you mean that they do have a limit? If they do not have a limit, then why can I not only include up to 9 data values in my pie chart?

Originally Posted by xlnitwit

Hi,

Perhaps you should consider why you want to use a pie chart for so many data points. It will likely be extremely hard to compare so many values and you will need to label every slice. If you do that you may as well avoid a chart altogether and use a table. I would imagine a bar or column chart to be preferable in this case.

Pie charts are not well regarded in analytical circles. I wouldn't go so far as to say there are no valid uses for them but they should, in my opinion, be far less ubiquitous than they are.

Perhaps more to your point, there is no setting for that limit that can be changed as far as I am aware.

I'll see what I can do with a bar chart.

Originally Posted by teylyn

I don't know your circumstances, so I can't answer that question. If you post the file with the data where you can't have more than 9 data points in a pie, I could take a look. I still don't think that pie charts with that many data points are a good idea. Use a horizontal bar chart instead and sort by value.

A pie chart with 18 data points is posible in Excel, but it is a horrible user experience and I would not want to punish anyone with such a bad design. See here

I have attached a sample of what I am doing. I tried doing a bar chart, but rather than putting 1 next to 2, 1 would be next to 5,
2 would be next to 5, and so on. I think it has something to do with excel wanting to split the data up into series 1 and series 2
but I do not want that.

Having listened to some of the other comments, I agree that a pie chart is probably not the best chart to go with in this case.

Any suggestions on how to format this data into a chart are welcomed.

I found out why I could only include 9 data points in the pie chart, it's because I don't have all my series values are not in the same column.

Originally Posted by teylyn

So now, please do the right thing and DO NOT chart that data in a pie chart. A pie chart should not have more than three slices. Consult "Save the Pies for desert" for more detail.

That was a good read. I will definitely keep all of that in mind.