If you're building a pie chart in Chartissimo and the slices need percentage labels, the toggle for that lives in the label controls — one checkbox, every chart that supports it. This walkthrough covers where to find it, plus a few opinions on when percentages tell the story and when they get in the way.
Total time: about three minutes from data to download.
The two-second version
- Pick the Pie chart type
- Check the Show percentages box in the label controls
- Render and download
That's it. Read on for the full walkthrough and the design tips.
Step 1: Paste your data
Open chartissimo.com/app and paste two columns: category names in the first column, values in the second. Headers in the first row are detected automatically.
Pie charts read best with 3–7 categories. More than that and the slices get small enough that percentage labels start to overlap. If your data has more categories, consider grouping the smallest into an "Other" slice before pasting.
Step 2: Pick the pie chart type
Choose Pie from the chart type picker. Chartissimo automatically calculates each slice's share of the total, so the percentages add up to 100% even if your raw numbers are arbitrary.
Step 3: Turn on Show percentages
In the label controls, find the Show percentages checkbox. This option only appears when Pie is selected — it's hidden for bar, column, and other chart types where percentages aren't the default unit of meaning.
Check the box. The chart re-renders with a percentage label on each slice, calculated to one decimal place. Slices smaller than a few percent will still get labels — Chartissimo positions them outside the slice with a connector line if there isn't room inside.
Categories, percentages, and absolute values are independent toggles. You can show category names with percentages, percentages alone, or all three together — depending on how much detail your audience needs.
Step 4: Pick a style and render
Browse the style picker and pick a preset, or describe a custom style in the prompt input. The percentage labels survive the styling — they get rendered with the same typography treatment as the rest of the chart so they feel intentional rather than tacked on.
If a percentage label is hard to read against a particular slice color, use the label style control to add a glass, glow, or solid background to the labels. This keeps them legible against any underlying color.
Step 5: Download the PNG
Click Download to save the chart as a PNG, or Copy to put it on your clipboard. The percentage labels are baked into the image — they survive the trip to PowerPoint, Keynote, Figma, or anywhere else.
When to show percentages — and when not to
Percentages aren't always the right call. A few rules of thumb:
- Show percentages when the story is about share — market share, budget allocation, demographic breakdown, where one slice fits in the whole.
- Show absolute values instead when the magnitude matters — dollar amounts, headcounts, units sold. "23.5%" tells you less than "$1.2M" when the audience needs to act on the number.
- Show both when you can — for example, "Marketing — $1.2M (23.5%)". Works well for executive reports where some readers care about absolute numbers and others care about relative weight.
- Don't show percentages on charts where the total isn't meaningful. A pie of "favorite ice cream flavors by quarter" doesn't have a meaningful 100% — those slices should be a stacked bar or grouped column instead.
The bottom line
Percentage labels are the difference between a pie chart that informs and a pie chart that requires the audience to squint and guess. The toggle takes one click. The chart still gets the styling treatment the rest of your deck deserves. Three minutes from data to a pie chart that pays its rent on the slide.