Default Colour

When you use a chart that only contains one colour option, for example a bar chart, the first colour option from the selected theme will be applied. The Default Colour option now allows you to specify a colour of your choice, this feature is particularly useful when you’re creating Merged charts.

The following screenshot shows a merged chart created from 2 charts that only contain one colour and we can see from this screenshot that the Merged chart is not very easy to read.

The default colour option allows you to override the selected colour in one, or both child charts, therefore making the merged chart a lot clearer. In the following screenshot, we’ve applied a default colour to the bar chart.

To select a default colour, choose the colour that you want to use on the Colours tab in the Edit Chart menu. You can select a new colour by choosing an option from the theme colour squares or by clicking a new colour in the colour palette.

Copy and paste the hex code into the Default Colour field - this is the best method to use if you want to apply a specific colour to your chart.

Alternatively, if you don’t need a specific colour and just want to change the colour to blue or red for example, you can specify a Default Colour by typing the name of a colour directly into the Default Colour field. In the following example, we typed ‘Blue’ into the Default Colour field.

If a Merged chart has already been created before you change the default colour, remember to click the ‘Refresh chart’ icon under chart tools to update the merged chart.

We’ve also created a video that covers how to change chart colours.