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I want to create a circular chart in Excel with 8 sectors like in this example:

enter image description here

Instead of representing the percentage like in a pie chart, I want the actual value like in a radar chart.

Is it possible without using macros?

1 Answer 1

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This walkthrough is based on Andy Pope's original tutorial here. Let's say this is the data you're starting with. There's a bit of data manipulation to do before we create the chart.

values

In your example we want all the sectors to be the same size, but let's make things flexible and add in a sector weight column. eg if you wanted 'WORK' to appear as a double/triple/quadruple-sized slice, just change the sector weight to 2/3/4 etc.

sector weights

Now we need to calculate the slice proportions that each sector needs to cover. Add a column called '% of 360', dividing the sector weight by the sum of all sector weights.

=C2/SUM($C$2:$C$9)  

Next we need to calculate the start and end angles that each sector covers. Add a 'Start Angle' column. In the top row enter 0, then for each row below reference the cell above.

In a 'Finish Angle' column multiply the cumulutive figure for '% of 360' by 360.

Start/Finish Angles

Now the trick to making a radar chart think it's a pie chart is to create data points for every one of the 360 degrees in a circle.

Let's extend our table, with a column for each angle (shaded grey in my example). For each cell, add some logic that checks whether the angle for that column is covered by the Start/Final Angles - and if so return the value for that row. Make sure you copy this for all rows and columns for 0-360 degrees.

=IF(AND(G$1>=$E2,G$1<=$F2),$B2,0)

enter image description here

(Note - If you're using Excel 2003 or earlier you will need to flip this table round so the table is vertical (transpose) because the number of columns used by this method is greater than the number allowed by old versions of Excel.)

We can now think about the chart. For flexibility's sake let's add a "Chart Labels" column between the final Angle and the 0-360 degrees. I'm just going to refer to the titles in column A but you might want to customise them here.

chart labels

Select all cells under the "Chart Labels" and 0-360 columns (G2:ND9 in this example). Insert a chart - under the radar chart options choose the end one - "Filled Radar". You'll get this.

enter image description here

Delete the legend and the circular data labels (highlighted yellow). Right-click the remaining axis and choose Format Axis. Set the major unit fixed to 10 (your maximum value) and the minor unit fixed to 1. Close the dialog box, then delete the axis numbers on the chart.

Switch on Major & Minor Horizontal Gridlines:

circular gridlines

Now our chart looks like this.

enter image description here

Set the major gridline line weight to be 2pt and black for the outer circle border. If you want to make the segments show the minor gridlines you will need to alter each segment's fill colour and set transparency (about 20-40% transparent should do it).

enter image description here

To get the radial segment borders we need to add a new series. Set the title to be cell C1 ("Sector Weight") and the values to the rows in column C (C2:C9). Set the horizontal category axis labels to be your chart labels (G2:G9).

Change the chart type for this new series to a pie chart. Remove the fill for the pie segments and add black borders. Add data labels for the pie series, selecting the Category Name instead of Value and setting the position to Outside End.

enter image description here

EDIT (Sep 30 2014): The workbook is available for download here as requested by Firee.

EDIT 2 (Mar 25 2015): Mihajlo has pointed out that this technique can be improved slightly:

The graph ends up with a slight shift counterclockwise (as seen on the last graph above with red having a gap at the vertical, but covering the boundary at 300 degrees). This is due to spider chart always being one behind (i.e. 1 degree is plotted at 2, 2 at 3 and so on),

A quick fix to this is to change the formula for finish angle (F2) from =360*SUM($D$2:D2) to =360*SUM($D$2:D2)+1 and change the formula for the first point of the last series to be the same as the last point of the last series (in the above example make cell H9 formula to be =ND9.

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  • Link only answers aren't good answers. Maybe you can summarize the steps together with some pictures
    – nixda
    Dec 11, 2013 at 18:15
  • It's fine as you did it. The problem with link-only answers is, that links can disappear/change in future which will make the complete answer useless.
    – nixda
    Dec 11, 2013 at 19:07
  • Excellent solution Andi.. Could you upload your workbook for us please.
    – Firee
    Sep 30, 2014 at 9:27
  • 1
    No problem - link added :)
    – Andi Mohr
    Sep 30, 2014 at 10:56
  • Brilliant answer +1
    – Dave
    Sep 25, 2015 at 6:12

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