How to Make a Pie Chart on Google Forms (3 Easy Ways)

Learning how to make a pie chart on Google Forms is simple. In fact, you just have to click the Responses tab to get a basic pie chart. But, for a more customizable option, you should link the form to Google Sheets or use an add-on. This guide will show you how to do both.

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This guide will coach you through everything you need to know about making pie charts in Google Forms and Google Sheets, but looking up individual guides to learn is not the most efficient way. When you finish this guide, we recommend you take a comprehensive G Suite course to get a solid foundation of knowledge to work from in the future.

What Are Pie Charts?

Pie charts are circular-shaped graphs that represent data statistically. The data is divided into smaller slices similar to the pieces of a pie to illustrate the different numerical proportions. Where the pie represents 100% of the dataset, the smaller slices represent a portion of the whole.

Why Use Pie Charts?

Here are a few reasons you should use pie charts to visualize the data from Google Forms. Here are some of the most valuable reasons.

View Response Proportions

Using a pie chart allows you to view the proportions of the responses in the submitted form. This can help divide individuals into certain groups based on the given response. This can help you understand how some variables relate and how different groups respond to questions. Using a Google poll pie chart can help you understand the preferences of the group and the favored response.

Easy Observation

A lot of data can become easier to understand if it’s presented using graphs. Every response can be represented using a pie slice. For example, you can use a Google voting pie chart to visualize how many votes an individual gets. This can save you from having to count and log the number of responses per option, as you can view the portion of responses instantly.

Gives Visual Data

Using pie charts can be a great way to check the most commonly occurring result in a dataset. This allows us to gauge the responses per question and check common trends quickly. Pie charts can condense the information into an easier-to-understand format. This also helps you understand the patterns between the datasets that may seem unrelated initially.

Creating a Pie Chart on Google Forms

Google Forms provides you with many possibilities for making questionnaires and conducting surveys. These forms allow the participants to fill out and submit their responses freely. It can also be used for conducting small or even large-scale surveys.

Even though Google Forms has many pre-built features that convert the responses from the participants into understandable graphs and charts, they still fall short in customization. For example, you cannot choose any kind of graph you like or alter the titles or subtitles of the charts and graphs.

Google Sheets can be used for customizing charts with the data from Google Forms. Because Google Sheets and Google Forms are integrated, Google Sheets can directly import the data from Google Forms and be used to create various charts and graphs that you can alter more freely in multiple ways.

How to Get a Pie Chart on Google Forms on Desktop

1. Go to Google Forms and create the form, survey, or quiz that you want to create the pie chart for.

2. After you create the form, share it with the audience using the Send button.

3. Once the responses have been given, open the form and go to the Responses tab.
4. Here, click on Summary. Depending on the data you have, you can view a basic pie chart here.

Although Google Forms can display the data gathered from the form in pie charts, it’s not as consistent, and you can not customize any of the elements in the Google Form pie chart. To create a customizable pie chart, you have to use Google Sheets.

Creating a Google Form Pie Chart in Sheets

Let’s look at how you can link Google Forms with Google Sheets and then create a customizable pie chart in Google Sheets. Here is how to link Google Forms to Google Sheets.

Go to the Responses tab and click the Link to sheets. Then you either Create a new spreadsheet or Select existing spreadsheet. For this example, we used a new spreadsheet. Once you Create it, it will take a few seconds to import the data into Google Sheets. Once done, the spreadsheet will open in a new tab.

Here is how to change Google Form responses to a pie chart in Google Sheets:

1. In the spreadsheet, click and drag to select the data you wish to use to create the pie chart. In this example, we will select the header and the answers for Question No. 1. The selected data will be indicated using a blue highlight.

2. With the data selected, click on Insert in the main header bar.
3. There, select the Chart option in the drop-down menu. This will create a chart in the middle of the spreadsheet window, and a chart editor window will open towards the right side of the screen.

4. Google Sheets will automatically create the relevant chart. However, if you wish to change the chart type, go to the Chart editor and click on the option under Chart type.

5. In this example, we are creating a Google Form results chart. In the Setup tab, scroll down to the Pie category. Here, you can select between a Pie chart, Doughnut chart, and 3D pie chart.

Customizing the Pie Chart

With the chart created, you can now start to customize it. To do this, you need to access the Chart editor for the pie chart. For demonstration, we will change the colors of the slices in the pie chart and the names of the title and the indicators. Here is how you can customize the chart in Google Sheets:

1. Click on the chart to bring it into focus. This is indicated by the blue border on the edges. Click on the vertical ellipsis icon towards the top right part of the chart.
2. Here, click on the Edit chart button in the drop-down menu. This will open the Chart editor towards the right side of the screen.

3. Here, click on the Customize button.

4. To change the colors of the slices, click on the Pie slice option to expand it.
5. Here, select the option you wish to change the color for and then click on the Color option to select a color from a color picker.

The are plenty of other ways you can customize the chart either in the editor or simply by clicking sections of the chart. For example, to change the slices’ text labels, double-click on the label to view the edit textbox. Then you can simply type in the new label.

All edits made to the chart will be saved instantly in Google Sheets. For a more detailed explanation, you can learn more about how to make a pie chart in Google Sheets.

Downloading the Pie Chart

With the pie chart created, you can download it locally to your computer.

To do this, click the vertical ellipsis on the chart to open a drop-down menu. Here, click on the Download button. You can then select the format you wish to download the chart in. You can select between a PNG image, PDF document, or Scalable Vector Graphics. Choose the desired format, and Google Sheets will begin the download.

Sometimes a pie chart may not be the best way to display the information, for more details on picking the right chart, feel free to check out our article on everything to know about Google Sheets charts.

How to Add a Pie Chart in Google Forms on Mobile

Adding a pie chart on Android or iOS is similar to how it’s done on a desktop. Google Forms does not have a dedicated application on mobile, which means you have to use a web browser to link to Google Sheets. You can follow the same steps as a desktop to open Google Forms on mobile. In Google Forms, click on Responses and then click on the Link to Sheets button. This will export the data onto Google Sheets.

Here is how to create a pie chart for Google Forms data on mobile:

1. Open the Google Sheets application on your mobile.
2. Click on the spreadsheet file you wish to open on the main page. This is the same file created when linking Forms to Sheets.
3. Click on the first cell containing the data for which you wish to make the pie chart. This is the header of the dataset. Drag the highlight using the blue dot towards the bottom right of the cell highlight and select the data set you want to make the chart for.
4. Click on the Plus (+) Icon at the top and click on the Chart option in the menu that shows up.

5. Click on the Type option and scroll down to find the Pie option.
6. With the Pie chart selected, click the Tick icon at the top left of the screen to apply the changes.

Add-ons for Google Form Data Visualization

There are several extensions and add-ons you can use to get more control over the data in Google Forms, to avoid having to use Google Sheets for data visualization. You can also use the official Apps Script language by Google, which allows you to program new functionality into Google Forms, but this is an advanced skill that is often more trouble than it’s worth when compared to just exporting to Sheets.

Google Workplace Marketplace add-ons like Advanced Summary by Awesome Table are great for creating charts and filters based on the form responses.

To install an add-on, just navigate to the 3 dot menu and click add-ons. Then, search for the add-on you want and click install.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why Are Pie Charts Useful?

Pie charts indicate percentages at a specific point in time and can be used to display portions of whole data sets. They can be helpful for displaying the proportions of different groups of relevant data. It is simpler than other graphs and charts and is useful for visually summarizing a large amount of data.

How to View Google Form Responses in a Graph?

You can link Google Forms with Sheets to create a custom graph using the data exported from Google Forms. To create a chart, click and drag to select the data in Google Sheets and click on Insert in the top bar. Here, click on the Chart option, which will add a chart to the spreadsheet. You can customize the chart by going to the Chart editor.

How Do You Change a Pie Chart to a Bar Chart in Google Forms?

Unfortunately, you can’t change the default chart type. But you can instead link the form results to Google Sheets and then use whichever chart type you’d like.

Wrapping Up How to Make a Pie Chart on Google Forms

Remember that before creating the Google pie chart survey graph, we have to link Google Forms with Google Sheets to get the most customizable pie graph. But you could also use an add-on if you’d like. Those are the two key takeaways from this guide teaching you how to make a pie chart on Google Forms.

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