Changing Colors of Bar Graphs

[Lynn Bartling]

I have a graph that shows budget and actual amounts for each month of the
year for 2003. I want the budget bars to be blue and the actual bars to be
green. Is there a way to select all the budget bars at the same time and
change the colors and then do the same for the actual bars? Or do I need to
select each bar individually and change the color?
Thanks for help.
Lynn Bartling

 

[Debra Dalgleish]

You can change the entire series at one time:

Select the chart
Right-click on one of the Budget bars
From the shortcut menu, choose Format>Data Series
Select a blue colour for the Area, click OK
Right-click on one of the Actual bars
From the shortcut menu, choose Format>Data Series
Select a green colour for the Area, click OK

 

[Lynn Bartling]

This doesn't work. When I right click on one of the Budget bars it selects
them all; same for the Actual bars.
Lynn

 

[Jon Peltier]

Lynn -

Sounds like you have budget and actual in the same series. You should
have three columns of data: Date (or Department, whatever), Budget, and
Actual. Make a clustered column chart of the data in these three
columns, so the budget bars and actual bars are side by side over the
Date/Department label. Now you can change the budget and actual bars
independently.

- Jon

 

[Lynn Bartling]

To the left I have the monetary amount; on the bottom I do have Budget and
Actual together...by date (i.e. Jan 2003; Feb 2003; etc.). I'm guessing
because they are in the same series that I cannot change them as an
individual group. I could have sworn that before I was able to select a
group by clicking on the ones I wanted to change when I did this last year -
but I guess not. Thanks for your help.
Lynn

 

[Jon Peltier]

Lynn -

Reread my comment. I meant three columns of data in the worksheet.
Column A = Date, Column B = Budget, Column C = Actual. Select this data
and reconstruct the chart. Budget and Actual will be in different series
in the column chart.

- Jon