Pie chart in Word with dollar amounts?

August 30, 2012 7:28 PM

How to make a pie chart in Word with dollar amounts, not percentages?

I am trying to make a pie chart in Word 2011 but cannot figure out how to make it display dollar amounts instead of percentages.

I enter the info in Excel, which puts the info back into Word. I have five or six slices of pie and the dollar amounts, but the pie chart doesn't reflect these. Is it possible? Does the dollar sign interfere with the Excel formula?

Please help!

posted by zardoz to computers & internet (5 answers total)

In Excel, are your fields formatted as text or currency? They should be formatted as currency.
posted by pullayup at 7:48 PM on August 30, 2012

It is totally possible. In fact in Word/Excel 2011 (that's the Mac version, if you're in Windows, that's Office 2010) the same data when you insert a pie chart works this way. In the data table, change the formatting to $. Then, when you ctrl-click on the the chart in Word and select "Format Data Labels" you'll see one of the tick boxes as values. Your chart probably has percentage selected. You can pic either or both the values or %.
posted by birdherder at 7:52 PM on August 30, 2012

If you right click the data labels, then click format data labels, is "value" or "percentage" checked? You want value.

Also per pullayup's advice, sometimes Office seems to glitch and not update the labels. In the past I have mysteriously been able to fix this by changing the format of the cells in excel to something random and then undoing it. Don't know why that does anything but sometimes it does.
posted by Wretch729 at 7:53 PM on August 30, 2012

Thanks for the fast replies! I am on an iMac, using Office 2011.

In the data table, change the formatting to $.

How do I do this?
posted by zardoz at 8:33 PM on August 30, 2012

I have Office 2008 not 2011, but in most versions you hilight the cells and then click the toolbar button that looks like a $. Nearby should be buttons to adjust the decimal points.

If you can't find that button, go to Format-->Cells-->Currency.
posted by radioamy at 10:46 PM on August 30, 2012