How to Make a Pie Chart in Illustrator

Pie chart from Illustrator

Graphic artists and other visual elements professionals who have little experience with spreadsheet software may find the graph function in Adobe Illustrator useful. Creating a pie chart in Illustrator is an important shortcut for presenting data visually. The steps below provide the user with the ability to create and modify pie charts without having to create a spreadsheet.

Things You'll Need

• Adobe Illustrator CS2 or later
• Empty Illustrator file

Instructions

1. 

   Click the Graph Tool as indicated in Image 1. Hold down the mouse button to reveal all of the available graphs. Once the pie graph has appeared, drag the cursor onto it and release the mouse button.

2. 

   Click and drag the cursor on the screen briefly. Releasing the left mouse button will bring up the table in which numbers can be entered for the pie chart as in Image 2. Note: The size of the box that is created is the size of the pie chart that will be generated.

3. 

   Populate the field with the data to include in the pie chart. Once all of the data has been entered, click the "check mark" button on the table as in Image 3. Close the data entry box by clicking the X in the upper right corner of the box. This will cause the graph to be created.

4. 

   Modify the colors in the graph as desired by ungrouping the elements and changing each desired color as in Image 4.

Tips & Warnings

• Once the graph has been ungrouped, the data in the table cannot be modified.

Resources

• Adobe Marketplace and Exchange provides many additional tips