Editing colours
The default colours are very restrictive, so I usually change them if I want my model to look good. The first problem in creating beautiful charts is the choice of colours. Excel only offers 64 colours, and most of them are hideous.
Fortunately, you can change them, and any changes you make travel with the workbook. This means that when your client opens it up, it's going to have your changed colours in it. It also doesn't affect any other workbooks - their colours will be unchanged.
How to change the colours
Here is the standard Excel colour palette, with very few light colours, which are important for attractive graphics. Alongside, I've shown my alternative, with many more light colours, arranged in sequence instead of all jumbled up.
Here is a workbook with my alternative palette in it.
So how do you change them? Click on Tools, Options, then the Color tab. You should see the colour palette below.
Click a colour you want to change, and then the button labelled Modify on the right hand side.
Either of the two dialogs below will then come up. You'll see you can flick between them by choosing the Standard or Custom tabs.
The Standard colours let you choose from a much larger number of colours by simply clicking on them. This is all you need, most of the time.
Suppose, however, that you like a colour but it is little too dark. Select it, then click the Custom tab. You can then use the slider bar at the right of the rainbow in the middle, to make it lighter.
If you are a real techo, you can play with the numbers at the bottom to create the perfect colour.
Copying colours between workbooks
If you've gone to the trouble of changing colours and you want to copy them into another workbook, or if you want to use the palette I've created for you in this workbook, it's quite easy.
1. Open both workbooks (the one you want to copy from, and the one you want to copy to)
2. Activate the one you want to copy into.
3. Select Tools, Options, and then the Color tab. You'll see a dropdown labelled "Copy colors from". Click this and pick the workbook you want to copy from.
NOTES:
The colour palette travels with the workbook, so everyone else should see the colours the same way you do.
You can create a template which will be used each time you create a new workbook. It needs to be called Book.xlt, saved as a template, and put in the correct templates folder (usually C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\XLStart)
Note: Where possible, I've attributed ideas to the people who thought of them. If I have missed someone or made a mistake, please let me know.