[SOLVED] How do I get my Excel time-line column chart to display in color?

[Father Garrin]

I have Excel 2002. I am trying to create a clustered column chart with a
time-scale x-axis. It seems to create the chart, but it limits it to black
and white, with skinny little columns that you can hardly distinguish. As
soon as I eliminate the dates along the x axis, it turns into technicolor.
But that isn't what I need. Help!

[R.VENKATARAMAN]

i am having excel 2000. if you point cursoron the bar and right click you
get <format data series>
on the left side click custom and click color andchoose color and ok it see
whether you get what you want.



Father Garrin <Father Garrin@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:F698A622-A840-4EBB-8383-5AE824ABF150@microsoft.com...
> I have Excel 2002. I am trying to create a clustered column chart with a
> time-scale x-axis. It seems to create the chart, but it limits it to
black
> and white, with skinny little columns that you can hardly distinguish. As
> soon as I eliminate the dates along the x axis, it turns into technicolor.
> But that isn't what I need. Help!

[Father Garrin]

OK. I tried that. What it does is turn the border of the column to a color
rather than black. But it doesn't give me nice readable columns with a
readable legend.

How's this for a theory? What's happening is not that it is turning B&W.
Instead, what it has done is eliminated the "fill" altogether. The column is
now only the border line. So how do I get it to fatten the columns again, so
that I can see the colors that are already there?

"R.VENKATARAMAN" wrote:

> i am having excel 2000. if you point cursoron the bar and right click you
> get <format data series>
> on the left side click custom and click color andchoose color and ok it see
> whether you get what you want.
>
>
>
> Father Garrin <Father Garrin@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:F698A622-A840-4EBB-8383-5AE824ABF150@microsoft.com...
> > I have Excel 2002. I am trying to create a clustered column chart with a
> > time-scale x-axis. It seems to create the chart, but it limits it to
> black
> > and white, with skinny little columns that you can hardly distinguish. As
> > soon as I eliminate the dates along the x axis, it turns into technicolor.
> > But that isn't what I need. Help!
>
>
>

[Jon Peltier]

What's happening is the X axis is a time scale, with the base unit as
days. The maximum width for a column is one day, and because of gap
width, it's generally less. The columns are so narrow that the border
coveres up the fill.

You could change the axis type from automatic or time-scale to category
(Chart menu > Chart Options > Axes tab), but this removes a nice
functionality of the chart, and you've already rejected this approach.

You can also change the column formatting so that the border matches the
fill, or remove the border altogether.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
http://PeltierTech.com/
_______


Father Garrin wrote:
> I have Excel 2002. I am trying to create a clustered column chart with a
> time-scale x-axis. It seems to create the chart, but it limits it to black
> and white, with skinny little columns that you can hardly distinguish. As
> soon as I eliminate the dates along the x axis, it turns into technicolor.
> But that isn't what I need. Help!