
Here is a simple to trick to beat the 56 color limitation in excel when you are designing a chart: use picture files (jpg, gif, png etc.) to fill the chart area.
You will no longer have to worry about limiting your project report / website / annual report etc. colors to the 56 that excel has.
1 + 3 steps to get more colors in excel charts:
- First create a 1*1 pixel sized image of the color you want to use in excel. You can use any software like MS Paintbrush to do this, all you need is the hex code or rgb of the color you want. Visit colour lovers if you are looking for cool color ideas.
- Right click on any of your chart data points and select format data point
- In the dialog select “fill effects”
- Finally, go to “Picture” tab in fill effects and specify your picture file path.

OK your changes. Thats all, now your charts have any color your want.
Also: Download 73 beautiful excel chart templates | Art of excel charting | Become a conditional formatting pro














4 Responses to “Office 2010 Contest Winners are here!!!”
I while ago I wrote a post on selecting a couple of names from a range via an UDF
I could have been handy.... especially because I didn't win.... lol
http://xlns.lamkamp.nl/?p=14
Sweet! I won! Thank you so much, Chandoo! I'm really speechless! I'll look out for an e-mail from you. Again, I really appreciate it, and I can't wait to fire it up!
Sincerely,
Tom "this one" 🙂
Thank You... Thank You... Thank You... 🙂
Hi,
Don't want to ruin your party.. 😉 but I noticed that when you sort the list A2:B11 (step 2), the RAND function re-calculates the numbers so that they are different and in mixed order again. I had to paste the whole area as values first and then sort to get it to work.
Wonder if the same happened to you because in your list at least Greg has a higher value than Tom 🙂