How to Change Chart Colors in Excel

Changing the colors in your Excel charts is a powerful way to transform a standard spreadsheet into a compelling, easy-to-read story. Good color choices can guide your audience's attention, highlight key insights, and reinforce your brand's identity. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know, from quick and simple color swaps to creating fully customized, brand-aligned color themes that save you time.

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The Basics: Changing Colors for an Entire Chart Series

The fastest way to update your chart’s appearance is by using Excel’s built-in color palettes. This method applies a professionally designed, coordinated set of colors to all the data series in your chart simultaneously.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Select Your Chart: Simply click anywhere on your chart. When you do, two new contextual tabs will appear in the Ribbon: Chart Design and Format.
2. Navigate to Chart Design: Click on the Chart Design tab.
3. Change Colors: Look for the "Change Colors" button in the "Chart Styles" group. Clicking this reveals a dropdown gallery of color schemes.

You'll find two main types of palettes here:

• Colorful: These palettes use a range of distinct colors, one for each data series. This is ideal for distinguishing between different categories, such as sales figures for different products.
• Monochromatic: These palettes use varying shades of a single color. This is excellent for showing progression or a range of values within a single category, like monthly revenue figures for the same department.

Simply hover your mouse over any palette to see a live preview on your chart. When you find one you like, just click to apply it.

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Precision Control: How to Color a Single Data Point

Sometimes you don't want to change the whole chart, you just want to draw attention to a single, critical piece of data. Maybe it’s your best sales month, a project that went over budget, or a specific data point from a survey. Highlighting a single bar, pie slice, or point on a line graph is a highly effective visual trick.

The key here is the "double-click" method:

1. First Click - Select the Series: Click once on the data series you want to edit (e.g., one of the bars in a bar chart). You will see selection markers appear on all the bars in that series.
2. Second Click - Select the Point: Without moving your mouse, click a second time on the specific bar you want to change. The selection markers will now disappear from the other bars, leaving only your chosen data point selected.
3. Open the Format Pane: With the single data point selected, right-click on it and choose "Format Data Point..." from the menu. This will open a detailed formatting pane on the right side of your screen.
4. Change the Fill Color: In the Format Data Point pane, click on the paint bucket icon labeled "Fill & Line." Under the "Fill" section, select "Solid fill." Click the "Color" dropdown menu and choose a new color from the theme palettes, or select "More Colors" to pick a specific RGB or Hex code.

Example in Action: Suppose you have a column chart showing monthly sales. You can leave all months in the standard blue but change the highest-grossing month to a vibrant green to immediately draw the viewer’s eye to your top performance.

Customizing Like a Pro: Using the Format Pane

The "Format Data Point" pane we opened in the last step is your command center for detailed visual customization. It goes far beyond simple solid colors and allows you to add professional polish to your charts.

Let's break down the most useful options under the "Fill & Line" tab:

Advanced Fill Options

While "Solid fill" is the most common, these other options can add a sophisticated touch:

• Gradient fill: This creates a smooth blend of two or more colors. You can control the type (linear, radial, etc.), direction, angle, and the colors themselves using "gradient stops." A subtle gradient, like a light blue fading to a dark blue, can add depth to bars and columns.
• Picture or texture fill: Excel allows you to fill a shape with an image from your computer or use a built-in texture like woodgrain or paper. While this can be distracting if overused, it can be effective for certain types of presentations.
• Pattern fill: Add a visual pattern, such as stripes, dots, or cross-hatching. You can choose a foreground color for the pattern and a background color for the space behind it. This is a great accessibility feature, as it helps distinguish between different series without relying solely on color.

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Border and Line Customization

Don’t forget the outlines of your chart elements! In the same "Fill & Line" tab, you'll find a "Border" section. This lets you control the outline of your bars, columns, pie slices, and bubbles.

• Color: Change the outline color to complement or contrast with the fill color.
• Width: Make the border thicker to help elements stand out.
• Dash type: Change a solid line into a dotted or dashed line for a stylistic effect.
• Compound type: This allows you to create double or triple lines, adding a formal look to your borders.

For line graphs, these controls are especially powerful. You can not only change the line color but also adjust its thickness, make it dashed, and change the appearance of the markers (circles, squares, triangles) at each data point.

Brand Consistency: Creating Custom Color Themes

If you're creating reports for your business, consistency is key. You want every chart to reflect your company's brand colors. Manually setting HEX codes every time is tedious and prone to error. The proper solution is to create a custom color theme in Excel.

Once you set up a custom theme, your brand colors will be available in the default color picker for every chart, shape, and table in your workbook.

How to Create a New Theme

1. Go to the Page Layout tab in the Ribbon.
2. In the "Themes" group, click the Colors dropdown.
3. At the very bottom of the list, select Customize Colors....
4. A new window will appear titled "Create New Theme Colors." Here, you'll see a series of color swatches labeled Accent 1, Accent 2, Accent 3, and so on. These are the default colors Excel will use sequentially for the data series in your charts.
5. Click on each "Accent" swatch and change it to one of your brand colors. You can select "More Colors" to enter a precise RGB or Hex value.
6. Give your new color theme a unique name at the bottom (e.g., "My Company Branding").
7. Click Save.

Applying Your Custom Theme

Now, whenever you want to apply your brand colors to a chart:

1. Select your chart and go to the Chart Design tab.
2. Click Change Colors.
3. Your newly created theme will be waiting for you at the top of the list under a "Custom" heading. One click is all it takes to apply a perfectly on-brand palette.

This simple act elevates your work from a generic spreadsheet to a professional, branded report.

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Beyond the Data: Coloring Other Chart Elements

Effective chart design also involves styling the elements that provide context to your data. A lightly colored background or easy-to-read labels can significantly improve clarity.

• Chart and Plot Area: The Chart Area is the entire chart object, including titles and legends. The Plot Area is just the inner box where the data is actually graphed. You can click on either area, right-click, and select "Format..." to change the background color, add a border, or introduce a subtle gradient.
• Titles and Labels: Change the color of your chart title, axis labels, or data labels for better readability. Simply click on the text element you wish to change, then go to the Home tab and use the "Font Color" selector, just as you would with any other text.
• Gridlines: Bright white backgrounds with stark black gridlines can be harsh on the eyes. Try selecting the gridlines, right-clicking for the "Format Gridlines" pane, and changing their color to a light gray. This makes them less visually dominant, allowing your data to be the star of the show.

Final Thoughts

Mastering color in Excel charts transforms your data reporting from a mere presentation of numbers into a powerful storytelling tool. By moving beyond the defaults, you can direct attention, clarify information, and produce professional-quality reports that are both beautiful and insightful, whether you're using simple presets or building custom brand themes.

While formatting charts in Excel is a valuable skill, it becomes time-consuming when you're manually building reports from multiple data sources every week. At Graphed, we automate this entire process. We connect directly to your data sources like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Salesforce, allowing you to create real-time, professionally visualized dashboards simply by describing what you want in plain English. Instead of spending hours tweaking colors and formatting, you can get instant, always-up-to-date reports and get back to making data-driven decisions.