You’ll notice that when you set up a graph
in Excel, the way the colours come out follow
a pattern.
There is a default- so the first series is
always in this case a blue, then a red, then
a green.
You may find that because of your corporate
colours, or for whatever reason, this is a
problem and every time you set up a graph
you are having to change the colours to match
your area.
There is a way to get around this and to change
these colours and this is the best way to
do it.
In this case the setting is not under the
Chart Tools but rather you need to go to the
Page Layout.
If I go to Page Layout, you’ll see there
is something under Themes called Colours.
When I click on the Colours you’ll see a
whole range of options exist, and you’ll
notice that the Office option is the one that
seems to be active.
If you look carefully, ignoring the first
two, notice that there is a blue, which is
our first one and then it goes red, green,
purple, etc.
If we hover over here, for example, notice
what’s happening to the graph.
It’s telling me that if you choose one of
these options, that is what the default will
look like.
So if I go to that one, you’ll see which
colours will come out.
If you are lucky, one of these will be the
colour that you want to use, but if not, it
is not a problem.
We go here to say “create a new theme colour”,
click on it and you’ll see it is now just
a case of working through this.
In the first few colours you just specify
how Excel must treat text versus background
and what colours should appear.
But for your graphs, this here, will decide
what colour your graph is.
So let’s say, for whatever reason, the first
colour we want here is always a red.
Notice over here we are told what it is going
to look like.
The second colour must appear – let’s
make it a black.
So we can work through here and just choose
a different sequence of colours.
OK.
I can then give it a name- Let’s just call
it “Video Clips”, I am going to say Save
it and notice now that the chart is in the
order we have specified it is in.
It is important to realize that if you change
these colours, not only does this chart change
– but let’s go to some of the other charts
in the spreadsheet and notice that all their
colours have changed as well.
This is because you have changed the underlying
theme and while this theme is on, any spreadsheets
or any graphs that open will show these colours.
So if you don’t want to show these colours,
you go back to the Page Layout, click on colours-
there is the option we chose – Video Clips
and here are a few other customized ones.
If we want to go back to Office, we go here
and we click – this chart is back to the
standard colours and you’ll notice all the
others are as well.
