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Formatting Data Series


The Format Data Series dialog lets you pick the color to use for each data series in your chart. To set the color and related format options for a data series

  1. Mouse over the data series you want to format.
    A blue rectangle box appears, indicating it is a hot spot for the data series.
  2. Right-click on the hot spot and select Format Data Series....
    The Format Data Series dialog box appears.

You can now pick a color from the color palette for the data series.

In addition, the Format Data Series dialog offers different format options depending on the chart type:


Bar and 3D Bar Charts

For each data series in a bar or 3D bar chart, you can set its color by selecting a color from the color palette.

For the other options in the dialog, your selection is applied to all data series in the chart. These include the following options:

 

Line and Area Charts

For each data series in a line or area chart, you can specify:

For the other options in the dialog, your selection is applied to all data series in the chart. These include the following options:

 

Pie Charts

For each data series in a pie chart, you can specify its color by selecting a color from the color palette.

For the other options in the dialog, your selection is applied to all data series in the chart. These include the following options:

 

Bubble and Scatter Charts

For each data series in a bubble or scatter chart, you can specify its color by selecting a color from the color palette.
For the Show series border option, your selection is applied to all data series in the chart.

 

Waterfall Charts

Waterfall charts are usually used to show how a measurement changes over time, and the various elements which make up that change. It typically shows how an initial value is increased and decreased by a series of intermediate values, leading to a final value.

A waterfall chart is composed of four types of values: absolute positive, absolute negative, relative positive, and relative negative. For each type of value, you can specify its color:

  1. Click the Change button next to value type you want to modify.
  2. Select a color from the popup color palette and click OK.
  3. Repeat step 1 and step 2 until the desired colors are selected.
  4. Click OK to apply the color selections to your waterfall chart.

 

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