How to Show Only Selected Values in a Power BI Pie Chart

Alex Wilber builds the regional dashboard for Contoso’s sales team. His report has a pie of revenue by region and a table of revenue by category. When a manager clicked Furniture in the table, the pie didn’t shrink to Furniture; it just shaded part of every slice, and people kept asking which number was which.

If you want to show only selected values in a Power BI pie chart, you have three good options: a slicer, Edit interactions set to Filter, or a measure that hides unselected slices. I’ll walk through each one with the same Contoso data, plus a Top N trick for showing only the biggest slices.

Quick answer: Use a slicer on the same field as the pie’s Legend, and the pie keeps only the selected slices. If another visual drives the selection, select that visual, go to Format > Edit interactions, and select the Filter icon above the pie instead of Highlight.

Why the pie highlights instead of filtering

By default, Power BI cross-highlights. When you select a data point in another visual, the pie keeps every slice and darkens only the part that matches. The rest stays faded. You can change that per visual pair, which I explain in detail in how to edit visual interactions in Power BI.

Look at the labels in the screenshot. With Furniture selected in the table, East reads 5.69%. That’s East Furniture revenue ($193,790) as a share of all revenue ($3,404,238), not East’s share of Furniture. It’s a common source of confusion.

Method 1: Use a slicer on the legend field

This is the simplest way to show only the selected slices, and it’s what most report users expect.

1. Add a Slicer visual to the page.
2. Put the same field that’s in the pie’s Legend into the slicer’s Field well. In my report, that’s Region.
3. Select one value, then hold Ctrl and select more.

Slicers filter by default, so the pie redraws with only East and West. If you need the slicer to allow several values, see how to enable multiple selections in a slicer.

Notice that the percentages changed. East was 20% of all revenue and is now 43.91%, because the built-in Percent of total re-bases to what’s visible. To keep the share of the grand total, use the ALL measure from my guide to pie chart percentage of total.

Method 2: Set Edit interactions to Filter

When the selection comes from another visual, such as a table or a bar chart, change the interaction from Highlight to Filter.

1. Select the source visual first. In my report, that’s the category table.
2. On the Format tab of the ribbon, select Edit interactions.
3. Small icons appear above every other visual: Filter, Highlight and None. Above the pie, select Filter.
4. Select Edit interactions again to turn the icons off.

Now selecting Furniture in the table redraws the pie with Furniture revenue only: Central 30.53%, East 26.36%, South 24.19% and West 18.92%. Selecting None instead makes the pie ignore the table completely, which is handy for a fixed "all regions" pie.

Microsoft Learn also documents a report setting that changes the default for every visual: File > Options and settings > Options > Report settings > Change default visual interaction from cross highlighting to cross filtering. It applies to the current file only, and any interactions you set by hand still win.

Clicking a slice inside the pie itself

Edit interactions controls how one visual affects other visuals. When you select a slice in the pie, the pie itself always keeps the other slices visible and dims them. There’s no setting to make a pie remove its own unselected slices.

If readers need to pick slices and see only those, give them a slicer on the legend field (Method 1). It’s clearer, and the selection is visible at a glance.

Method 3: Hide unselected slices with a measure filter

Sometimes the slicer should filter only the pie, not the whole page. For that, use a disconnected slicer table and a measure. Select Modeling > New table:

Region Picker = DISTINCT ( Sales[Region] )

Don’t create a relationship to Sales. Put Region Picker[Region] in a slicer, then create this measure. The SELECTEDVALUE function returns the region for each slice:

Show Slice =
IF (
    NOT ISFILTERED ( 'Region Picker'[Region] )
        || SELECTEDVALUE ( Sales[Region] ) IN VALUES ( 'Region Picker'[Region] ),
    1,
    0
)

Select the pie, open the Filters pane, drag Show Slice into Filters on this visual, and set it to is 1. Only the pie reacts, while other visuals keep every region. The approach is the same one I use to filter a measure with CALCULATE.

Show only the top slices with a Top N filter

Another way to show only some values is to keep the biggest ones. In the Filters pane, expand the Legend field under Filters on this visual, set Filter type to Top N, choose Top 3, and drag Revenue into By value. Select Apply filter. The filter vs slicer comparison explains when a filter beats a slicer.

Top N removes the rest, so there’s no automatic "Other" slice. If you need one, group the small categories with a calculated column, or right-click the field and use New group.

Tell readers what they’re looking at

A filtered pie can mislead people who don’t notice the slicer. Use a measure as a dynamic title. Select the pie, open General > Title, select fx next to the text, choose Field value, and pick this measure:

Selected Regions =
IF (
    ISFILTERED ( Sales[Region] ),
    "Revenue for " & CONCATENATEX ( VALUES ( Sales[Region] ), Sales[Region], ", " ),
    "Revenue for all regions"
)

Troubleshooting

• The pie still dims instead of filtering: you selected the pie, not the source visual, before Edit interactions. Select the table or chart that makes the selection first.
• Edit interactions shows no icons: select a visual on the page first. The icons appear on the other visuals, never on the one you selected.
• The measure filter hides everything: the picker table has a relationship to Sales. Delete it.
• Percentages jump after filtering: Percent of total is relative to visible slices. Use a measure with ALL for a fixed share.

For more pie chart work in the same report, try these next:

• Power BI Pie Chart Conditional Formatting
• Power BI Pie Chart Drill Down
• Pie Chart vs Donut Chart in Power BI: Differences and When to Use Each
• Power BI Slicers: Types, How to Add and Configure Them (Complete Guide)

Frequently Asked Questions