The worldwide web is a wonderful place. I am constantly amazed by the simple yet very effective stuff we can learn by just reading. Today I want to share with you two very great pieces of advice:
- Seth Godin’s 4 Simple Principles for making effective graphs:
Seth Godin is probably one of the most remarkable, successful storytellers out there. And when he tells you how to make effective graphs, you can pretty much trust him. He says (1) Don’t let popular spreadsheets be in charge of the way you look, (2) Tell a story (3) Follow some simple rules (4) Break some other rules. We at PHD totally agree and spread these very principles everyday. He also says,Don’t use 3-D charts unless you have a license. You can animate, but only if you have a note from your doctor.
Priceless Advice… 🙂
- Juice Analytics’ Think Like a Designer when you are making dashboards
Juice is one of my favorite blogs. In this very concise yet important article they list down 7 dashboard design principles: (1) Unity/Harmony (2) Proximity / Hierarchy (3) Clear Space (4) Balance (5) Contrast (6) Proportion (7) Simplicity
Do you notice something interesting? Both links resonate same ideas, same principles and hold same values that can make you a great presenter / storyteller / individual.
Additional material for reading: 14 basic skills for chart makers, Make dashboards using excel
Have a good weekend everyone 🙂
17 Responses to “Custom Number Formats – Colors”
You are right, Chandoo. I was playing with the colour numbers last week and some of them don't appear different from each other. Others are totally different from yours.
@Duncan
Each version of Excel, post 2003, renders colors slightly differently
Different language versions may also have different default color palettes
Hello in french
excel 2010
colo1 = couleur1 = black
[couleur1]; [couleur2]; etc..
@Hui, thank you very much again for this great post.
However - under Excel 2007, Hungarian version your solution does not work with color names. I've tried both English and Hungarian names, but drops an error message "not valid formats"
Do you have any idea how to solve this issue?
thanks in advance
@Andras
Without a Hungarian version of Excel 2003 I don't think I can assist
Have you tried using the colour numbers? I couldn't get the names to work (despite using an english version of excel). but it did work with the numbers though. I left out the "u" and was easily able to produce burgundy using [color9]
Here a possible solution: find an English version of Excel, write there the formats using English names, then open the file in the Hungarian version and see the translation.
In Excel 2007 I can't get the colour names to work e.g Sea Green but the numbers do e.g color3 - colour3 does not work so I must bow to the country that has stolen my language (ha ha!)
Hey chandoo, nice Tip!
Wouldn't be easier just apply some conditional formatting for negative numbers and another for positive numbers? Or there's some cases that you can't do that?
Unfortunately the TEXT function doesn't color the cell as number formatting does.
Hi Hui,
Great post Sir, love the new way of formatting with color numbers.
I am using 2007, and it leads me to the last color number 56.
Thanks Hui.
[…] explains how to set up custom number formats with a wide array of […]
Thanks Hui - works a treat!
Thank you, very helpful.
Trying to figure out if it is possible to apply color only to a part of the cell?
E.g. I have a value formatted as Accounting with a currency symbol.
Those I find somewhat distracting though necessary. If I could make them less obtrusive by coloring them gray while the number would stay black, that would be great. Tried tinkering with the format string, but didn't get the desired result. Single color for complete cell value works, but coloring just part of it could not be achieved. Maybe somebody managed that?
Exactly what I was looking for - thank you!
colour in the Australian doesn't work - we have to go American and no problem.
I always thought is was 56 colours notice you have 57. Cool.
thanks
Analir Pisani
Customised Microsoft Office Training Specialist
Sydney - Australia
http://www.azsolutions.com.au
Thank You!