Are Microsoft’s choices well considered? Not really. However, it’s still a less cumbersome workaround than the 2 kludges I mentioned at the start of this article.Īre these limitation fair? No.
These colors cannot fill charts automatically and they will not show in the Office 2008 or 2011 for Mac color picker.
This hack adds colors to the color picker in Windows and in Office 2016 for Mac. In Office 2007 and later, there is one potential workaround that gives users access to 10 additional colors. If you design the presentation with this in mind, implementation is easy for the user.
Stacked columns display color #1 as the bottom layer and pie charts apply color #1 to the first pie segment, and by default this pie segment has its left border at 0 degrees, pointing straight up. In a standard column chart, the leftmost column is color #1, with each extra column getting the next color in the sequence. So the advice still holds that speccing more colors is really imposing lower productivity on your users.Ĭharts apply this sequence in a predictable way. And in Office charts as in so many Office features, if it isn’t automatic, it’s a time-waster. But you still only get 6 automatic chart colors.
Fortunately, now there is separation between color functions, with 2 colors for backgrounds, 2 for text, 6 for charts and fills and 2 specifically for hyperlinks. It just makes it harder to use.įor PowerPoint 2007 and later, Microsoft has decided you only need 12 colors for the presentation. Designing with more colors does not make it a better design.
New charts come in with goofy colors and each series must be manually reassigned from RGB values.įor PowerPoint 2003 and earlier, Microsoft has decided you only need 8 colors for everything. User headache number 2: You assign the color palette positions to the correct elements i.e., Title text is filled from the Title text palette position. In fact, the colors of the entire presentation are must be updated manually element by element. This means new charts look swell, but color-coded sections cannot be easily updated. User headache number 1: You assign the color palette positions to create an automatically-filled chart, then manually assign all other presentation elements with RGB colors.
Therefore, if you have designed a series of chart colors that is different from the code colors used the the presentation, you must give your users one of two headaches: CC#2 is Accent, CC#3 is Accent and hyperlink, CC#4 is Accent and followed hyperlink, CC#5 is Shadows and CC#6 is Title text. The colors are assigned in this order: Chart Color #1 is always taken from the Fill position. However, the same colors are used for Office charts. This is a handy way to create color-coded sections in a presentation. Applying the recommended color position to a presentation element will mean that that element can be automatically updated if the palette is changed. In order, the colors are used for Backgrounds, Text and lines, Shadows, Title text, Fills, Accent, Accent and Hyperlink and finally Accent and followed hyperlink. PowerPoint 2003 and earlier have color palettes with 8 colors maximum. This has consequences you have not considered. In PowerPoint 2003 and earlier, the chart colors are taken from the 8-color palette that is used for other elements as well. In PowerPoint 2007 and higher, these are 6 distinct colors that are only used for charts and object fills. PowerPoint only has code in place to automatically assign 6 palette colors to charts. This makes it tricky to design a color sequence that works for all purposes.
PowerPoint 2003 Some color palette slots are used for as many as 3 functions.