How to Change Waterfall Chart Colors in Excel

You’ve done the hard part: you’ve structured your data and created a waterfall chart in Excel to show how a value increases and decreases over time. But the default blue, gray, and orange color scheme isn’t telling the story you want. This article will show you exactly how to take control of your chart’s colors to make your data clearer, more insightful, and more professional.

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Understanding How Excel Colors Waterfall Charts

Before changing colors, it helps to know how Excel treats the bars in a waterfall chart. Unlike a standard bar chart where each bar can be a different series, a waterfall chart treats all the bars as part of one data series by default. However, it automatically assigns a different color to three specific types of values:

• Increase: Positive values that add to the total.
• Decrease: Negative values that subtract from the total.
• Total: Any bars you manually set as totals or subtotals, representing the cumulative value at that point.

The trick to customizing colors is learning how to select and format these specific categories - or even individual bars - one at a time.

The Simple Way: Formatting for Modern Excel (Microsoft 365, 2021, 2019, 2016)

If you're using a recent version of Excel, you have access to the built-in Waterfall chart type, which makes formatting much easier. Here’s the step-by-step process for changing the standard green for "increase" and red for "decrease."

Step 1: Open the Format Data Series Pane

First, click anywhere on your waterfall chart to select it. Next, single-click on any one of the "Increase" bars (the default is usually blue or green). This action will select all the Increase bars in your chart at once. You'll see little selection circles at the corners of each 'Increase' bar.

Now, right-click on one of the selected bars and choose Format Data Series... from the dropdown menu. This will open the formatting pane on the right side of your Excel window.

Alternatively, you can simply double-click any bar in the series to open the same pane.

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Step 2: Customize Your Increase and Decrease Colors

In the "Format Data Series" pane, you’ll see some options specific to waterfall charts.

To change the 'Increase' color:

1. With all the "Increase" bars selected, click the Fill & Line icon (it looks like a paint bucket).
2. Expand the Fill section.
3. Select Solid fill.
4. Click the Color dropdown and choose your desired color. A common choice is a shade of green to represent positive change.

To change the 'Decrease' color:

1. Now, single-click on any "Decrease" bar (the default is typically orange or gray). This will select all the bars representing negative values.
2. The "Format Data Series" pane should still be open. Repeat the process: go to the Fill & Line icon.
3. Under Fill → Solid fill, click the Color dropdown and choose your color. Red is the standard convention for negative change.

Step 3: Setting and Coloring "Total" Bars

Often, you want your start and end values (or significant subtotals) to stand out. In the waterfall chart, these are called "Totals." If you just colored your 'Increase' series, your Starting and Ending bars might have changed color too if they were positive values. Let’s fix that.

1. Single-click the bar you want to designate as a total (for example, your "Beginning Balance" bar). Notice that this will likely select all bars in the 'Increase' series again.
2. Click that same bar one more time. This is the key step. The second click isolates just that single bar for formatting, deselecting all the others.
3. Right-click on that isolated bar and choose Set as Total from the menu. The bar will now drop to the baseline and adopt the default "Total" color (usually gray).
4. With the single bar still selected, use the "Format Data Point" pane on the right to change its color. A neutral color like dark blue or gray works well for totals.

Repeat this process for your "Ending Balance" bar or any other subtotals in your chart.

Pro Tip: The difference between one click and two clicks is crucial. A single click selects the entire sub-series (all increases or all decreases). A second, slower click on an already-selected bar selects only that individual data point.

The Workaround: Building a Waterfall Chart for Older Excel Versions

If you're using Excel 2013 or earlier, you won't have the built-in Waterfall chart option. But don't worry - you can build a convincing one using a stacked column chart. This method actually gives you great control over the colors from the start.

Step 1: Structure Your Data Correctly

First, you need to set up your data table with a few extra "helper" columns. This is the foundation of the workaround.

• Category: The labels for your chart's horizontal axis (e.g., Months, Departments, Revenue sources).
• Value: The raw positive or negative numbers for each category.
• Increase: A formula column for positive values. Use the formula: =IF(B2>0, B2, 0) (Assuming 'Value' is in column B). Drag this formula down.
• Decrease: A formula column for negative values. Use the formula: =-IF(B2<0, B2, 0)
• Base: This invisible "helper" column holds the floating bars up. The formula for the first cell (e.g., D3, assuming your first row of helper columns is row 2) is: =D2+C2-E2 This formula calculates the starting point for the next bar.
• Start/End Totals: These will be separate columns that directly relate to your starting balances and ending balances.

Your table will look something like this, with separate columns for the values that will become distinct, color-coded bars.

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Step 2: Create a Stacked Column Chart

Select your category labels and the calculated columns (Base, Increase, Decrease, and your Start/End Totals). Do not select the raw 'Value' column.

1. Go to the Insert tab on the ribbon.
2. In the Charts section, click Column and choose the Stacked Column chart type.

You’ll get something that looks a bit messy, but we will fix it.

Step 3: Format Your Chart into a Waterfall

Now comes the shaping and coloring. We need to make the "Base" series invisible, so the other bars appear to float.

1. Single-click on any of the "Base" series bars (usually the bottom-most color in each stack). This selects the entire series.
2. Right-click and select Format Data Series...
3. In the formatting pane, under Fill, select No fill. Under Border, select No line.

Magically, your other bars will appear to be floating, connected by a thread. The invisible series is holding them in position.

Now, you can easily color the other series:

• Click on the "Increase" series bars, right-click, choose Format Data Series, and pick your preferred green color.
• Click on the "Decrease" series bars, right-click, choose Format Data Series, and pick your preferred red color.
• Do the same for your dedicated "Start" and "End" bars, perhaps coloring them a strong blue or grey.

Because you've set them up as separate data series from the beginning, coloring them is far more straightforward than in the modern chart version.

Best Practices for Waterfall Chart Colors

Changing colors isn't just about aesthetics, it’s about clarity. Follow these guidelines to create an effective visualization.

1. Stick to Audience Conventions

Green for positive ("in the green") and red for negative ("in the red") are universally understood in a business context. Deviating from this can cause confusion unless you have a good reason (like matching your company's brand colors).

2. Consider Accessibility

Roughly 8% of men and 0.5% of women have some form of color vision deficiency, with red-green being the most common. If you’re presenting to a wide audience, consider using a more accessible color pair like blue and orange. Blue can represent increases, and a strong reddish-orange can represent decreases. This combination is much clearer for all viewers.

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3. Keep Totals Visually Distinct

Your starting, subtotal, and ending bars should not be confused with the increases or decreases. Using a neutral, solid color like dark gray, black, or blue helps them act as visual anchors in your chart, clearly marking the journey's start and end points.

4. Add Connector Lines

In the modern Excel chart, connector lines that link the end of one bar to the start of the next are on by default. You can toggle them in the Format Data Series pane by checking or unchecking the "Show connector lines" box. These lines help guide the viewer’s eye and make the flow of the chart easier to follow.

Final Thoughts

In short, mastering waterfall chart colors in Excel is a straightforward process once you understand the logic. For modern versions, it's about clicking carefully to select the right series or point before using the Format pane. For older versions, the power lies in structuring your data correctly for a stacked column chart workaround.

While tweaking charts in Excel can offer great control, we know the manual process of pulling data, structuring tables, and clicking through format panes is exactly the kind of repetitive work that takes you away from actual analysis. At Graphed, we built a tool to eliminate this friction. Instead of building tables and charts by hand, you simply connect your data sources once, then ask questions like, "Show me a waterfall chart of last quarter's revenue changes, with Shopify sales as an increase and ad spend as a decrease." Graphed generates a live, interactive visualization instantly, giving you back the time you’d otherwise spend working with formulas and format panes.