About the Doughnut Chart Maker
A doughnut is a pie with the middle cut out, and that hole is useful space. Leave Total in centre ticked and the sum of every row is printed there in large type, so a storage breakdown reads as 600 GB in the middle with the ring showing how it splits. The Hole size control accepts anything from 20 to 85 percent of the radius: a narrow ring at 80 suits dashboards and progress-style graphics, while 35 keeps enough band for the percentage figures to sit comfortably inside.
Rows follow the same shape as the rest of the chart makers, one category and one number per line, with CSV, TSV, semicolon-separated text and JSON all accepted. The ring segments are separated by a hairline in the pane colour so neighbouring colours never bleed into each other, and a category that holds the entire total is drawn as one continuous ring rather than a segment with a visible seam. Long category names are trimmed in the legend at twenty characters so the ring keeps its width.
Pick a doughnut over a pie when the total itself is part of the message, or when you want to place a label, count or icon in the middle later on. If you want the classic filled circle, the Pie Chart Maker uses the same input. To compare several totals side by side instead of splitting one, the Bar Graph Maker is the clearer choice, and JSON to CSV will reshape API output into rows this tool understands.
How to use
- Paste your category,value rows, or JSON such as
{"Video": 240, "Photos": 96}. - Set Hole size % to control how thick the ring is.
- Keep Total in centre on to print the grand total, or clear it to leave the hole empty.
- Download chart.svg and drop it into a slide deck, doc or web page.
Common questions
- What is the difference between a donut and a pie chart?
- The angles are identical. A donut removes the centre, which frees space for a total and makes the ring itself easier to compare.
- Can I put my own text in the middle?
- The built-in centre shows the total. For custom text, download the SVG and edit the centre label in any vector editor or text editor.
- How thin can the ring be?
- The hole goes up to 85 percent of the radius. Past about 70 the inline percentages get tight, so consider setting slice labels to None.
- Is donut or doughnut the correct spelling?
- Both are used for this chart type. Chart.js calls it doughnut, most spreadsheet apps call it donut, and they mean the same ring.