Creating a Pie Chart


If you've had to create business presentations before, you know how dull and boring those corporate graphs can look. Well, with the Adobe Creative Suite in your hands, you can make those executives sit up in their leather chairs and take interest in the cool graphics you can createespecially with Adobe Illustrator. Let's start by launching Illustrator and creating a new document that is 9 inches by 5.5 inches (the size of the border you created).

By the Way

Because this is a presentation that will be viewed onscreen, you can choose RGB for the color mode for this graph, which will allow your colors to appear more vibrant onscreen.


Choose the Pie Graph tool (see Figure 17.14) and click once on the artboard to bring up the Graph dialog box. Enter a value of 4 in for both Width and Height (see Figure 17.15). In the Graph Data window that appears, enter values of 20, 30, 10, and 40. Click the Check Mark button to see the values updated in the pie graph itself (see Figure 17.16).

Figure 17.14. Choosing the Pie Graph tool.


Figure 17.15. Specifying the size of the graph.


Figure 17.16. Adding values to the graph.


Close the Graph Data window and switch to the Direct Selection tool. Select each pie wedge individually and fill it with a color of your choice.

When you're done, choose the Selection tool and select the entire graph. Press the X key to put the focus on the Stroke attribute, and then press the / (slash) key to set the Stroke color to None (see Figure 17.17).

Figure 17.17. The pie graph with the colors specified and all the strokes removed.


I'll bet you're thinking that the graph doesn't look very exciting at this point, and I'd have to agree with you. So you'll add some punch by applying a 3D effect. With the graph still selected, choose Effect, 3D, Extrude and Bevel. Position the dialog box so that you can see your artwork on your screen (if possible), and click the Preview button. You'll see your dull chart suddenly turn into an eye-catching 3D chart. Change the Extrude Depth to 75 point and rotate the x-axis (shown in red) to 55° (see Figure 17.18). Click OK and deselect the graph.

Figure 17.18. The 3D pie chart, extruded and rotated.


To add emphasis to one of the pie wedges, switch to the Direct Selection tool and drag one of the wedges out from the center. Because the 3D is applied as a live effect, the graph will update to show that wedge in an "exploded" view (see Figure 17.19).

Figure 17.19. Adding emphasis to a pie wedge value by dragging it outward from the center.


For a final effect, use the Selection tool to select the entire graph and choose Effect, Stylize, and Drop Shadow to add a nice drop shadow to the pie graph (see Figure 17.20).

Figure 17.20. Adding a soft drop shadow makes the pie graph seem to pop off the screen.


Save the graph file as a native Illustrator (.AI) file into the main folder of your Version Cue project (not the web-specific ones). Remember to include a comment when you save the file. Close the Illustrator file and switch back to InDesign.



Sams Teach Yourself Adobe Creative Suite 2 All in One
Sams Teach Yourself Creative Suite 2 All in One
ISBN: 067232752X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 225
Authors: Mordy Golding

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