Any way to change pie chart legend order?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tim Witort
  • Start date Start date
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Tim Witort

I have a pie chart in a slide showing two percentages: males and females.
In the pie, I need to show the male pie slice as the right hand slice
of the pie. If I set the angle where the first slice (males) starts
to zero, the male slice correctly shows on the right half of the pie,
but in the legend, the labels are always shown in the same
order as they appear in the datasheet (Male Female). As a result
it can be confusing since the order of the items in the legend is
the reverse of the pie.

I can work around this by setting the angle for the first slice to
180, but this puts males on the left and also the vertical division
between the slices move to the bottom rather than the top. Two
things I don't want.

Is there any way to change the order of the labels in the legend?
It seems the only way to change the legend is by changing the
headings in the datasheet which wouldn't help obviously. Ideally,
I could move the labels with their little colored boxes into the
correct order.

-- TRW
_______________________________________
t i m
a t
w i t o r t d o t c o m
_______________________________________
 
This is a frustrating shortcoming of charting. There's no way to reorder the
legend. In fact, I often end up creating legends manually (basically faking
it) because of this.

You might want to see if doing the chart in Excel helps, though. You have a
little more control over the series order in the data source dialog there.
 
Is there any way to change the order of the labels in the legend?


Why do you use a legend at all? A good alternative would be to label the
slices directly.

Best regards,
Ute
 
Ute Simon seemed to utter in
Why do you use a legend at all? A good alternative would be to label the
slices directly.
Click to expand...

I agree. Unfortunately, the format of the slide is dictated
by a customer and they require the legend. I may end up inserting
a legend as a graphic like Echo suggested.

-- TRW
_______________________________________
t i m
a t
w i t o r t d o t c o m
_______________________________________
 
Echo S seemed to utter in
This is a frustrating shortcoming of charting. There's no way to
reorder the legend. In fact, I often end up creating legends manually
(basically faking it) because of this.

You might want to see if doing the chart in Excel helps, though. You
have a little more control over the series order in the data source
dialog there.
Click to expand...

Since this is being done via automation from another application,
Excel is not an option. But the idea of making my own "fake"
legend may be a good solution. Thanks.

-- TRW
_______________________________________
t i m
a t
w i t o r t d o t c o m
_______________________________________
 
Tim Witort said:
Ute Simon seemed to utter in

I agree. Unfortunately, the format of the slide is dictated
by a customer and they require the legend. I may end up inserting
a legend as a graphic like Echo suggested.
Click to expand...

Just for the record, I'd definitely agree with Ute about labels --
especially for pie charts!

But even with column and other types of charts, the legend can't be
reordered without reordering the data itself, and that's not always
practical, either.

I've requested this feature before and will continue to do so. Hopefully
some day we'll get it!
 
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