How to Create a 3D Pie Chart in Google Sheets with AI

A 3D pie chart is a great way to make a simple data story visually stand out in a presentation or report. This tutorial will walk you through exactly how to create and customize a 3D pie chart in Google Sheets, covering both the classic, click-by-click method and the new, faster approach using its built-in AI tools.

Understanding 3D Pie Charts: The Good, The Bad, and The Best Practices

First, what exactly is a 3D pie chart? Like its 2D cousin, it shows proportions or percentages - how different parts make up a whole. The added third dimension (depth) gives it a stylistic flair that can make your dashboard or slideshow look more dynamic. Common use cases include visualizing survey results, marketing channel performance, or sales by product category.

However, it's worth noting that data visualization experts often caution against using 3D charts. The added perspective can sometimes distort the data, making it difficult to accurately compare the sizes of the slices. A slice in the foreground might look larger than a slice of the same value in the background. Because of this, it's best to use them for simple, clear-cut data stories.

Here are a few tips to use 3D pie charts effectively:

• Keep It Simple: Limit your chart to no more than 5-7 categories. Any more than that, and it becomes cluttered and hard to read.

• Focus on Significant Differences: Use it when the difference between slices is obvious and doesn't require precise comparison. Representing data like 26%, 25%, and 24% in a 3D pie can be misleading.

• Label Clearly: Always include labels (either values or percentages) on your slices so the audience doesn't have to guess.

Step 1: Get Your Data Ready for Google Sheets

The foundation of any good chart is well-organized data. Before you start creating your visualization, you need to structure your information in a simple format that Google Sheets can understand. For a pie chart, this means two clear columns.

• Column 1: Categories. This column contains the names of the slices of your pie. Examples: social media channels, product names, sales regions.

• Column 2: Values. This column contains the corresponding numeric data for each category. Examples: website sessions, units sold, revenue.

Imagine you're a marketing manager analyzing website traffic for the last quarter. Your data in Google Sheets should look clean and simple, like this:

Example Data Setup:

Clean up your data by making sure there are no typos in the categories and that all values are numerical. Once it's neatly organized, you're ready to start building your chart.

Step 2 (The Traditional Way): Manually Creating Your Chart

The manual method gives you complete control over the process, allowing you to use the Chart editor menu to build your visualization step by step.

1. Select Your Data: Click and drag your cursor to highlight the cells containing your data, including the headers. In our example, you would select cells A1 through B6.

2. Insert the Chart: Go to the Google Sheets menu and click on Insert > Chart. Google Sheets will automatically analyze your data and create a default chart - often a bar chart or a 2D pie chart.

3. Open the Chart Editor: A Chart editor sidebar will appear on the right side of your screen. If not, just double-click on the chart to open it.

4. Choose the 3D Pie Chart: In the 'Setup' tab of the Chart editor, find the 'Chart type' dropdown menu. Click it, scroll down to the 'Pie' chart section, and select the '3D pie chart' option (it’s the one with the slanted, dimensional look).

Just like that, your 3D pie chart will appear in your spreadsheet, ready for customization.

Step 3: Customize Your 3D Pie Chart for a Professional Look

A default chart gets the information across, but a well-customized one makes your data more compelling. Use the 'Customize' tab in the Chart editor to fine-tune every part of your visualization.

Chart style

Here you can change the overall appearance of your chart. You can adjust the background color, change the font for all text elements, or add a border color to make it pop against your spreadsheet cells. Enabling '3D' here is also an alternative way to get the 3D effect.

Pie chart

This section is specifically for pie charts and offers some important settings:

• Doughnut hole: You can add a hole in the center of your pie chart to turn it into a doughnut chart. Typically, you'll leave this at 0% for a standard pie chart.

• Border color: This adds a border around the entire pie chart, which can help it stand out.

• Slice label: This is a very useful setting. You can choose what information appears on each slice of the pie:

  • None: No labels.

  • Value: Shows the raw number (e.g., '8,240').

  • Percentage: Shows the proportion of the whole (e.g., '41.2%').

  • Label: Shows the category name (e.g., 'Organic Search').

You can also adjust the font size, format, and color for these labels here. Including the percentage directly on the chart is highly recommended for clarity.

Pie slice

Want to change the color of a specific piece of the pie? This is the place. Click the dropdown menu to select one of your categories (e.g., 'Organic Search') and then use the color picker to assign it a new color. Repeat this for each slice to match your brand colors or highlight a key data point.

Chart & axis titles

Every chart needs a clear title. In this menu, you can add a 'Chart title' and a 'Chart subtitle'. Give your chart a descriptive name like "Q3 Website Traffic Sources" to provide immediate context for anyone viewing it.

Legend

The legend explains what each color on your chart represents. You can adjust its position (top, bottom, left, right, or none), change the font, size, and color of the text.

Step 2 (The AI Way): Creating Charts Instantly with Gemini for Google Sheets

Google recently integrated its Gemini AI model directly into Google Sheets, which lets you generate charts and analyses just by typing in plain English. This method can save you numerous clicks and a lot of manual configuration. [Note: Access to Gemini for Google Workspace may require a specific subscription plan.]

Here's how to create the same 3D pie chart conversationally.

1. Select Your Data Range: Highlighting your data (e.g., A1:B6) first gives the AI context for your request.

2. Open the Gemini Side Panel: Look for a Gemini icon on the right side of your screen (it looks like a sparkling star) to open the chat panel.

3. Write a Simple Prompt: Now, just tell the AI what you want. Don’t worry about using technical terms. Type a prompt directly into the Gemini sidebar. For our traffic data example, you could write:

Create a 3D pie chart to show sessions by traffic source from the selected data.

Or even something more casual:

Show me my website session data in a 3D pie chart.

1. Generate and Insert: Press enter, and the AI will process your request. In a few moments, it will generate a preview of the chart right in the sidebar. If it looks good, click the 'Add to sheet' button to insert it into your workspace.

Fine-Tuning Your Chart with AI Follow-Up Prompts

The best part about the AI approach is how easy it is to make edits. Instead of navigating menus, you can just ask for changes. With your chart selected, you can use prompts like:

• "Change the title to 'Last Quarter's Website Sessions'."

• "Make the 'Organic Search' slice blue."

• "Add percentage labels to each slice."

• "Move the legend to the bottom of the chart."

This conversational process feels less like you're configuring software and more like you're instructing an assistant, radically accelerating the time it takes to get from raw data to a finished, presentation-ready chart.

Final Thoughts

Whether you prefer the control of the manual Chart editor or the speed of conversational AI prompts, creating a stunning 3D pie chart in Google Sheets is easier than ever. By preparing your data properly and keeping a few design best practices in mind, you can turn a simple spreadsheet into a compelling visual story.

While Google Sheets' built-in tools are great for visualizing a single data set, reporting gets complicated when your data lives across many different platforms - like Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, Shopify, and Salesforce. To get a complete picture, we built Graphed. We connect to all your marketing and sales tools instantly, allowing you to build comprehensive, real-time dashboards in seconds with simple, natural language prompts. It turns hours of manual reporting into a 30-second conversation.