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Maintaining chart colors across different computers

J

Jordan

Member
Ha, I accidentally posted this on the old forum. It took me a while to realize it had been deserted.

Ok, so:
Here's my issue. I have a chart I created in Excel 2013 using default theme colors. Well, I wasn't even aware I was using "theme" colors, I was just using colors I happened to like. I mean, all I did was using the fill bucket features the same way I would in earlier versions of excel. Anyway, when I hand the spreadsheet file over to friends and colleagues, the chart might no use the same colors, which appears to happen as a result of a difference in theme on their machines. I find this annoying, and I don't like it. Ask me before you change my colors, am I right? So, how do:
(a) set my colors to be permanent across all machines; or
(b) somehow transfer the theme with the file?
are these things even possible?
 
Jordan, by default, the theme used in office is 'office.xml'

However, if you're using another theme, then you'll need to load that theme. Can you check if you're using anything other than the default?
 
bobhc, I could be mistaken on this, but I am not sure if OP is pointing towards Office 2003 and it's color compatibility with subsequent office versions. From what it seems (yes, seems) it looks like the versions in discussion are Office 2007 and above, up to Office 2013. And more to the point, OP has indicated that he thinks it has to do with the theme's being different. If you look closely, the color palette is actually being driven by the themes used in Office 2007 onwards. Replicating the color palette may yield a closer to desired result, but I'd not want to tamper with the palette of a theme that was not intended to be touched. So I for one think that the solution to the problem would be more towards loading the correct theme, instead of mapping the color indices in the palette with the required colors.
 
Good day Sam

I was thinking that as the OP was using 3013, his friends and colleagues may be using earlier versions as very few companies are yet upgrading all users to 2013,.......but if all are using the same, 2013, I do not see where the problem could come from other than computer/monitor or users having a set theme !!
Perhaps Jordan can go the the themes section/colors and load the first one "Office" and always use that, while he is there in the colors section he will see the difference in the bars between Office and Office 2007-2010.
 
I'm using 2013. I believe my friends and colleagues are using 2010 or 2007; nobody I've sent my work to is using 2003 - and I don't anticipate supporting 2003 either.My guess is that on at at least one of my colleague's computers, their company has a theme that is either a new theme set to load on default - or they've made changes to the office default theme. I'm wondering, what if I wrote some VBA to go through the chart series and assign the backgrounds as hard, rgb values. That's within my wheelhouse, but I'm just surprised their doesn't exist a checkbox option that says, "don't frikkin' change my colors!" It just seems like there ought to be one.
 
I think the last time I encountered this I ended up changing the colors with vba.
 
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