is now part of CreativePro.com!

5 Ways to Get Pie Charts into InDesign

Chad Chelius
10

In an analytical world, pie charts can help
to serve up your data in a tasty way.


This article appeared in Issue 85 of InDesign Magazine.

Everyone likes pie (charts), right? Pie charts are one of the most common methods of visually representing data. Not only are they visually pleasing, but they help readers to easily understand the information in a logical, intuitive way.

InDesign doesn’t natively contain a tool you can use to create pie charts directly. That doesn’t mean that you’re out of luck, though. When it comes to creating pie charts in InDesign, I’ve seen a number of different approaches, and I’d like to show you five different ways that you can get pie charts into an InDesign document, each with their own benefits and downfalls depending on your workflow.

. . . .

This article is for members only. To continue reading, please sign in, or sign up for a membership today. Thanks for supporting CreativePro!

BECOME A MEMBER

CreativePro membership keeps you up-to-date with the technology, solutions, and resources to strengthen your professional development.

For just $6.50/month (billed annually), you’ll get access to valuable benefits, including:

  • 12 monthly issues of CreativePro Magazine, filled with practical, real-world tutorials written by experts
  • Downloadable resources including templates, fonts, scripts, design assets, cheat sheets, and more
  • Hundreds of members-only tutorial and tip articles
  • Top Tips for InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator ebook collection
  • Discounts on events and books
  • and more...

Sign up now!



Recommended For You

InDesigner: RAND Review

InDesign Nightmares

GREP of the Month: Email Addresses

InStep: Using Table Styles and Cell Styles
Chad Chelius
Chad Chelius is a trainer, author, consultant, and speaker residing in the Philadelphia area. He’s been using Adobe products for over 25 years and began his career in the design and publishing industry. As an Adobe Certified Instructor and a consultant, he teaches and advises on all Adobe print and web products, specializing in InDesign and InCopy workflows, Illustrator, and PDF accessibility using Adobe Acrobat. He works with clients both large and small, in and outside the United States, helping them to solve problems, work smarter, and more efficiently using Adobe products.
  • Mr. Serge says:
    May 9, 2016 at 10:02 am

    In general best option is not to use pie charts at all.

    Reply
    • Mike Rankin says:
      May 9, 2016 at 11:39 am

      Some projects require charts and graphs, including pie charts. And Chad’s article is a great resource for anyone who needs to get them into InDesign.

      Reply
  • Anne-Marie Concepcion says:
    May 9, 2016 at 11:53 am

    Curious … why do you say no pie charts …?

    Reply
  • gagood says:
    May 9, 2016 at 1:39 pm

    Pie charts are poor representations of data. They are often used to obscure rather than clarify.

    The data in pie charts is represented in areas (the pie wedges), as opposed to length (such as in bar charts, column charts, and even line graphs). It is much harder for the human mind to determine small differences in areas than small differences in lengths. In pie charts with similar size wedges the wedges often have to be labeled with the percentages for you to be able to tell the difference in their sizes. Anything smaller than 15-degrees is extremely hard to differentiate. (Perhaps that’s why the numbers on analog clocks are at 15-degree increments.)

    Pie charts are pretty, but do an awful job of displaying data. I tell students to only use pie charts for one of three reasons:

    1. Your boss (or teacher/professor) requires you to use pie charts.
    2. You want a pretty graphic and don’t care about the data.
    3. You want to obscure the data.

    Reply
  • Mike Rankin says:
    May 9, 2016 at 3:36 pm

    Interesting piece on the pros and cons of pie charts: https://priceonomics.com/should-you-ever-use-a-pie-chart/

    Reply
  • Serge Paulus says:
    May 10, 2016 at 2:05 am

    What about working in Deltagraph and exporting in eps – small correction needed in Illustrator? Deltagraph is the real pro solution. I’ve made thousands of graphs of any kind in that software (poor me).

    Reply
  • Serge Paulus says:
    May 10, 2016 at 2:06 am

    By the way, thanks to Chad for those quick solutions I didn’t know !

    Reply
  • ohmmm says:
    May 11, 2016 at 8:16 am

    If you have excel why use bizzarre solutions ? Excel have everything what y need – just import to indesign – pice of cake.

    Reply
    • >