Excel Bar of Pie Chart: How It Works and When to Use It

An Excel Bar of Pie chart separates smaller categories from a pie chart and displays those categories as segments in a bar beside the pie. To create one in Excel for Microsoft 365 on Windows, select a category-and-value range, then choose Insert > Insert Pie or Doughnut Chart > Bar of Pie; Excel groups the selected values into an Other slice in the main pie.

What a Bar of Pie chart shows

A Bar of Pie is a specialized pie chart for a single series of values. The large pie shows the overall distribution, while a second plot displays selected categories individually as a bar. The main pie includes an Other slice whose value represents the combined total of the categories moved to that second plot. The bar breaks that combined amount back into its component categories.

For example, imagine a report of monthly orders by product: three products account for most orders, while six others each have relatively few. A standard pie may make the six small wedges difficult to compare or label. A Bar of Pie can retain the large categories in the pie, combine the smaller ones into Other, and show the six individual values in the bar. The bar is not an independent set of extra data; it is a closer view of part of the same whole.

Excel calculates each category’s share from the values in the plotted series. The chart therefore works best when the categories are parts of a meaningful total, such as the distribution of orders across products. It is not designed to compare unrelated measures, multiple data series, or values that do not form a sensible whole.

How to read the two plots

Read the main pie as the high-level picture. Its ordinary slices represent categories left in the first plot, and its Other slice represents the total of the categories assigned to the bar. Read the bar to compare those assigned categories with one another. The bar’s segments add up to the Other amount; they do not add new value on top of the pie.

This distinction matters when labels show values or percentages. A percentage label on a bar segment can refer to that category’s share of the full series, depending on the label settings, rather than its share of the Other group. Check the labels and their basis before drawing conclusions. If the audience needs both the full-series percentage and the percentage within the grouped categories, explain which one is shown or calculate and display the second figure separately.

Category order also affects how easily readers can connect the views. Excel uses the source data and the split settings to decide which points go into the second plot. Keep category names clear, and consider arranging the source data in a deliberate order so the chart does not appear arbitrary.

When this chart is useful

Use a Bar of Pie when the main story is the overall share of a few large categories, but the smaller categories still matter enough to show individually. It can be useful in a compact report where an ordinary pie would leave several tiny slices crowded together, particularly if readers need to see which categories make up the combined Other value.

It is less suitable when every category has a similar value, when there are only a few categories, or when precise comparisons are the priority. Pie angles and areas are harder to compare accurately than aligned bar lengths. If a reader must rank many categories or detect small differences, a regular bar chart is usually clearer. If the important message is the change in category values over time, a line chart or grouped column chart will usually be more informative.

Good fit: a few dominant categories plus a meaningful collection of smaller categories.
Weak fit: many similarly sized categories that all need to be compared precisely.
Consider another chart: when the data has several series, includes time trends, or does not represent parts of one whole.

Create a Bar of Pie chart in Excel

On Excel for Microsoft 365 for Windows, arrange the data in two columns: category names and one numeric value for each category. Include a header row if useful, and select the category labels and values together. Avoid selecting totals or blank rows as though they were categories, because including them changes the chart’s proportions.

Select the labels and values to chart.
Open the Insert tab.
Choose Insert Pie or Doughnut Chart in the Charts area.
Select Bar of Pie.
Review which categories Excel placed in the bar, then adjust the split if needed.

Excel inserts the chart as an editable object in the worksheet. Use Chart Design to change chart elements or style, and use Format to adjust the selected chart part. To select the data series or an individual point, click the relevant pie slice or bar segment; clicking again may be needed to select just one point rather than the whole series.

Excel for Mac has a comparable pie-chart insertion option, although ribbon layout and control placement can differ by release. Excel for the web may provide fewer chart-formatting controls than the desktop application. If the split options described below are not available in the web interface, open the workbook in the desktop version of Excel to configure them.

Choose which values go in the bar

To control the split, select the chart’s data series, right-click it, and choose Format Data Series. In the formatting pane, open Series Options and use Split Series By. Excel provides several ways to decide which points belong in the second plot. The precise controls shown depend on the selected split method.

Position: sends a specified number of points to the second plot based on their position in the source data. This is useful when the data has been deliberately ordered, but can be confusing if the order changes.
Value: sends values below a chosen threshold to the second plot. This can isolate small categories, though a change in the data may move a category across the threshold.
Percentage value: uses a percentage threshold to choose points for the second plot. This can make the rule easier to relate to shares of the total.
Custom: lets you assign particular data points to the first or second plot. Use it when specific categories should be grouped regardless of their order or exact value.

The pane may also show a setting such as the number of values in the second plot or a threshold for the values moved there. Check the chart after changing a rule: if a threshold captures too many or too few categories, the resulting bar may be crowded or the main pie may lose useful context. For a custom assignment, select the relevant point and use its formatting options to set which plot it belongs to; names and controls can vary slightly across Excel releases.

Format labels and improve readability

Labels are often essential because the chart contains two linked plots. Select the chart and use Chart Design > Add Chart Element > Data Labels to add labels, or use the chart’s plus button when it is available. You can then select a label and open its formatting options to choose details such as category name, value, or percentage. Avoid turning on every label option at once: long category names and several numbers can make both plots harder to read.

Give the chart a title that states what the values measure and the period or group covered. For example, Share of orders by product, Q2 is more informative than Sales if the plotted values are order counts. Keep the category names consistent between the source table and the chart, and use a legend only when it adds clarity. If the bar contains several categories, labels directly on its segments can be easier to follow than relying on color alone.

Colors should help distinguish categories, not imply a ranking that the data does not support. The Other slice and its component segments should be visually recognizable as related. If you change the chart’s colors, verify that the colors and labels still make sense in print or for readers who have difficulty distinguishing some colors.

Bar of Pie compared with other charts

A Pie of Pie chart uses the same general idea of separating categories from a main pie, but shows the second plot as another pie rather than a bar. It may suit a presentation whose visual style depends on circular charts, but comparing wedge sizes in two separate pies can be difficult. Bar of Pie gives the secondary categories a common baseline, which generally makes their relative sizes easier to judge.

A regular bar chart is often the stronger choice when the reader’s main task is to compare or rank all categories. It avoids dividing the data into a main plot and a secondary plot, and bars share a scale. A standard pie chart is simpler when there are only a few categories and their shares are easy to distinguish. In short, choose Bar of Pie for the combination of an overall pie view and a breakdown of its smaller categories—not just because it is a less familiar chart type.

Common problems and misconceptions

If the bar contains the wrong categories, the chart may be using a position-based split or a threshold that does not match the intended grouping. Open Format Data Series > Series Options, inspect Split Series By, and choose a different rule or custom assignments. If a category moves unexpectedly after the source data is sorted or updated, review the split settings again; position-based grouping is especially sensitive to data order.

If the chart appears to double-count values, remember that the bar breaks down the Other slice rather than adding a second total. The primary pie still represents the full data set: its Other slice is the combined value represented by the bar. Do not add the bar’s full total to the pie’s total when interpreting the chart.

If the chart is hard to read, the issue may be the chart type rather than a missing formatting trick. Too many categories, long names, similar values, or a large Other group can undermine the visual. Try a bar chart, reduce the number of categories only if grouping is meaningful, or revise the labels. Also verify the selected source range and confirm that the values are numeric; text-formatted numbers or an accidentally included grand total can produce a misleading result.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Other slice in an Excel Bar of Pie chart?
The Other slice is the combined value of the categories shown individually in the chart’s secondary bar. It keeps the main pie focused on the remaining categories while preserving a breakdown of the grouped amount.

Can I choose exactly which categories appear in the bar?
Yes. In Format Data Series > Series Options, set Split Series By to Custom, then assign the relevant data points to the second plot. This is preferable when a fixed set of named categories should always be grouped.

Can a Bar of Pie chart show more than one data series?
No. It is a pie-chart type for one series of values, with category labels identifying the parts of that series. For side-by-side comparisons across multiple series, use a chart type such as a clustered bar or column chart.

Why did Excel put a category in the bar automatically?
Excel applies a default split when it creates the chart. The default may be based on the number or size of values assigned to the secondary plot. Open the series options to inspect the rule and change it to a threshold or custom assignment that fits your data.

Is Bar of Pie better than Pie of Pie?
Neither is universally better. Bar of Pie makes comparisons among the secondary categories easier for many readers because they appear as bar segments. Pie of Pie may suit a particular design, but comparing slices across two pies is generally less direct than comparing lengths against a shared baseline.

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Sources: Function behaviour and menu paths: Microsoft Support documentation for Excel. Method & sources

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