piechart

Create a pie chart from a vector of numbers. By default, each slice label displays a percentage value.

data = [1 2 3 4];
piechart(data)

Create a pie chart from a categorical vector. The piechart function counts the number of instances of each category to determine the size of each slice.

Control the order of the slices by calling the reordercats function.

flavors = categorical(["Banana Cream","Pumpkin","Pumpkin","MATLAB","Blackberry"]);
flavors = reordercats(flavors,["MATLAB","Pumpkin","Banana Cream","Blackberry"]);
piechart(flavors)

Create a table containing the names of bakers in a pie contest and the corresponding number of votes.

Bakers = ["Betty";"Abby";"Afiq";"Ravi";"Dave"];
Votes = [2; 5; 5; 2; 5];
tbl = table(Bakers,Votes)

tbl=5×2 table
    Bakers     Votes
    _______    _____

    "Betty"      2  
    "Abby"       5  
    "Afiq"       5  
    "Ravi"       2  
    "Dave"       5  

Create a pie chart from the table.

piechart(tbl,"Votes","Bakers")

You can specify the rotation direction and shift all the slices around the circle by setting properties. You can set properties by specifying name-value arguments when you call the piechart function, or you can set properties of the PieChart object later.

Create a vector called data and use it to create a pie chart. By default, the slices appear in a clockwise direction and the left edge of the first (blue) slice is at 0 degrees (12 o'clock).

data = [1 2 3 4];
piechart(data)

Create another pie chart, but this time, set the Direction property to "counterclockwise" by specifying it as a name-value argument. Call the piechart function with an output argument to store the PieChart object.

p = piechart(data,Direction="counterclockwise");

Shift the slices by 90 degrees counterclockwise by setting the StartAngle property of the PieChart object to -90.

p.StartAngle = -90;

You can change the slice labels from percentages to counts by setting the LabelStyle property. The LabelStyle property has options for displaying different combinations of slice names, data values, and percentages.

Create a pie chart from a numeric vector and a vector of names. Specify an output argument to store the PieChart object. Then change the labels to include the data values instead of the percentages.

data = [1 2 3];
names = ["Blueberry","Pumpkin","Lemon"];
p = piechart(data,names);
p.LabelStyle = "namedata";

Another option is to display just the names without any data or percentage values.

p.LabelStyle="name";

Create a pie chart that shows the percentage of total sales for each participant in a bake sale. Call the piechart function with an output argument to store the PieChart object so you can change aspects of the chart later.

Bakers = ["Betty","Abby","Afiq","Ravi","Dave"];
Sales = [20 51.55 49.37 20.35 48.25];
p = piechart(Sales,Bakers);

Query the slice names of the PieChart object.

p.Names

ans = 1x5 string
    "Betty"    "Abby"    "Afiq"    "Ravi"    "Dave"

Change the slice names to the pie flavors.

p.Names = ["Blueberry","Pumpkin","Banana Cream","Blackberry","Key Lime"];

Display each label as two lines of text, with the pie flavor on the first line and the sales number on the second line. To combine the different elements for each label, start with the Names property, and add a newline character, a dollar sign, and the Sales vector (converted to a string).

p.Labels = p.Names + "\newline$" + string(Sales);

You can change the colors of your pie chart by using the colororder function. For example, create a pie chart with the default colors.

piechart([1 2 3 4])

You can choose from several named color palettes, including gem (default), glow, sail, reef, meadow, dye, and earth. Change the color palette to meadow.

colororder meadow

Change the color palette to sail.

colororder sail

Since R2024b

You can consolidate the data from multiple small slices into one slice named "Others" by setting the NumDisplayWedges property. You can also arrange the slices in ascending or descending order by setting the DisplayOrder property.

For example, create a pie chart that shows the number of employees at a company by department. When you create the chart, specify an output argument to store the PieChart object so you can modify it later.

employees = [100 10 50 30 25 10 15];
departments = ["Engineering" "Sales" "User Experience" "Documentation" "IT" "HR" "Security"];
p = piechart(employees,departments,LabelStyle="name");

Arrange the slices in descending order according to the number of employees.

p.DisplayOrder = "descend";

Display three slices and consolidate the other slices into a fourth slice named "Others". Because the slices were sorted in descending order by the DisplayOrder property, setting NumDisplayWedges to 3 displays the three largest slices.

p.NumDisplayWedges = 3;

To create multiple charts in a figure, use a tiled chart layout.

Create a 1-by-2 tiled chart layout. Create the first chart by calling the nexttile function followed by the piechart function. Then add a title by calling the title function. Repeat these steps for the second chart.

tiledlayout(1,2)
nexttile
piechart([1 2 3 4])
title("2022 Totals")
nexttile
piechart([10 3 1 5 6 4])
title("2023 Totals")