How to Change Pie Chart Colors in Excel

You’ve got your data lined up in Excel, and you’ve created the perfect pie chart to visualize it. There’s just one problem: the default colors are bland, off-brand, or just don’t effectively tell the story you want to tell. This article will walk you through several easy ways to change the colors of your Excel pie chart, from quick theme swaps to applying precise brand colors for a fully professional look.

Why Bother Changing Pie Chart Colors?

Before jumping into the "how," let's quickly touch on the "why." Customizing your chart colors isn't just about aesthetics, it's about effective communication. The right colors can dramatically improve how your audience understands the data.

• Improve Clarity: Using distinct, high-contrast colors makes it easier to distinguish between different slices, especially for a large number of categories. This reduces ambiguity and helps your message land clearly.
• Reinforce Branding: For business reports, presentations, or client dashboards, using your company's official brand colors creates a consistent and professional look. It makes your work instantly recognizable and looks far more polished than default settings.
• Highlight Key Information: Do you want to draw attention to a specific slice, like your highest-performing product category or a critical risk area? Making that slice a bright, bold color while keeping others in a neutral palette is a powerful way to guide your audience’s focus.
• Convey Meaning: Colors can carry subconscious meaning. For example, you might use shades of green for positive financial results and reds for losses, or a gradient from light to dark to show progression. This adds another layer of intuitive understanding to your chart.

Taking a few moments to customize your colors transforms a generic chart into a powerful and persuasive communication tool.

First, Let's Create a Simple Pie Chart

If you don’t have a pie chart yet, here’s a quick refresher on how to create one. All you need is a single column of labels (categories) and a single column of corresponding numerical values.

Let’s use this sample data for marketing channel performance:

Channel | Leads

Organic Search | 450 Paid Search | 320 Email Marketing | 180 Social Media | 210 Referral | 95

Here’s how to turn that data into a pie chart:

1. Select the entire data range, including the headers (in our example, A1 to B6).
2. Navigate to the Insert tab on the Excel ribbon.
3. In the Charts group, click the icon that looks like a pie chart.
4. Choose your preferred pie chart style (e.g., 2-D Pie, 3-D Pie, or Doughnut).

Excel will instantly generate a pie chart with default colors. Now, let’s make it your own.

Method 1: Change All Colors at Once with Themes

The fastest way to change pie chart colors is to apply one of Excel’s pre-built color palettes. This is perfect when you need a quick visual upgrade without needing specific shades.

Follow these steps:

1. Click on your pie chart to select it. When selected, you'll see two new tabs appear on the ribbon: Chart Design and Format.
2. Go to the Chart Design tab.
3. On the far left, click the Change Colors button.
4. A dropdown menu will appear with a variety of color palettes, categorized as "Colorful" and "Monochromatic." Hovering your mouse over any palette will show you a live preview of how your chart will look.
5. Find a palette you like and click on it to apply the new colors to your chart.

That's it! In just a few clicks, you have a completely new look. The "Monochromatic" options are especially useful for creating a sleek, clean feel, using different shades of a single color.

Method 2: Change a Single Slice's Color

This is the most common requirement. What if you only want to change the color of one specific slice to make it stand out? Excel makes this easy, but there's a small trick to it.

• Step 1: The First Click Selects the WHOLE Chart. Click once, anywhere on the pie itself. You’ll see selection handles (little dots) appear around every slice. This indicates the entire data series is selected.
• Step 2: The Second Click Isolates ONE Slice. Without clicking anywhere else, click again directly on the specific slice you want to change. Now, you’ll notice that the selection handles disappear from all other slices, and only the one you clicked is highlighted.

Once you’ve isolated your target slice, you can change its color:

1. Right-click on the selected slice to bring up the context menu.
2. In the menu, hover over the Fill option (it looks like a paint bucket). A color palette will appear.
3. You can select a standard color from this palette, or click More Fill Colors... for advanced options.

Repeat this double-click process for any other slices you want to customize individually. This technique gives you complete control over every single piece of your pie.

Method 3: Using Specific Brand Colors (HEX or RGB)

For professional reports, you'll often need to use specific brand colors. Excel’s default palettes won't cut it. To do this, you'll need the HEX or RGB code for your brand colors (e.g., an RGB of R: 13, G: 110, B: 253 for "classic blue").

Here’s how to apply a custom color:

1. Follow the steps above to isolate a single pie slice (click once to select the series, then click a second time on the specific slice).
2. Right-click the isolated slice and select Format Data Point... from the context menu. This will open a sidebar on the right side of your screen.
3. In the "Format Data Point" sidebar, click the paint bucket icon (Fill & Line).
4. Expand the Fill section and ensure that "Solid fill" is selected.
5. Click the dropdown next to Color and then select More Colors...
6. A "Colors" dialog box will pop up. Click on the Custom tab.
7. Here, you can input your exact color. Use the "Color model" dropdown to switch between RGB and HSL. Enter the R, G, and B numbers in the corresponding boxes. If you have a HEX code (e.g., #0D6EFD), you can also enter it in the "Hex" box.
8. Click OK. Your slice will update with the precise brand color.

This method ensures perfect brand consistency and gives your charts a highly professional and tailored appearance.

Bonus Tips for Professional Pie Charts

Changing slice colors is a great start, but a few extra polishes can take your chart from good to great.

1. Adjust Slice Outlines

Adding a crisp border around each slice can make them look more defined. With a single slice (or the whole series) selected, use the Format Data Point sidebar:

• Go to the Fill & Line (paint bucket) section.
• Expand the Border section.
• Select Solid line. You can then choose its color, width, and dash type. A thin, white or light gray border usually looks best as it provides separation without being distracting.

2. Format Your Data Labels

If your new colors make the default black text hard to read, you need to format the data labels.

• Click once on any data label to select all of them. Click a second time on a specific label to isolate just that one.
• Right-click and select Format Data Labels... or simply use the font formatting tools on the Home tab to change the font color, size, or style (e.g., make it bold white text against a dark blue slice).

3. Saving Your Chart as a Template

If you've spent time perfecting a branded pie chart, don't repeat the process every time. Save it as a template!

1. Finalize your chart with all your desired colors, fonts, and formatting.
2. Right-click on the chart's border (not on the pie itself).
3. Select Save as Template... from the menu.
4. Give your template a descriptive name (e.g., "Company_Brand_PieChart") and click Save.

The next time you need to create a chart, go to Insert > Charts > See All Charts. In the dialog box that appears, go to the Templates tab, and your saved design will be there waiting for you.

Final Thoughts

Customizing pie chart colors in Excel is a straightforward process that elevates your data visualization from generic to impactful. By moving beyond the defaults and using built-in themes, single-slice formatting, or specific brand colors, you can create reports and presentations that are not only professional but also much clearer and more persuasive.

Manually creating and stylizing charts in spreadsheets is often a time-consuming but necessary part of reporting. At Graphed, we've automated this entire process. Instead of clicking through menus to format every slice, outline, and label, you can simply connect your data and ask questions in plain English like, "Show me a pie chart of leads by channel for this month," and instantly get a live, presentation-ready visualization. If you want to spend less time formatting and more time analyzing, give Graphed a try.