Vary colors in bar graph?

[excelma]

I'm admittedly very new to Excel. I have a simple bar graph showing revenues (y axis) by 4 business segments (x axis) for a single year. I'd like each of the business segments to have a different color, but the revenues by business segment are all in the same data series and so have the same color. So, every time that I change the color of the bar, it changes the color across all four bars (because they are all in the same data series). How do I fix this?

[oldchippy]

Hi excelma,

Welcome to the forum, when you click your bars in the chart it selects all bars, click again and only one bar is selected, then format that one bar. Repeat for other bars.

[Maxxscape]

I have a similar question and wasn't sure if I should start a new topic or hijack this one so I flipped a coin

The only problem with manually changing the color is that if a line of data is deleted and everything shifts up on the graph, the color stays with the new data that is now on that line...

Would each of excelma's business segments have to be a different series
to have the bar colors dynamically change?

For Example, I have a list of stores that need to be worked on the Y axis and the dates they are to be visited on the X axis...

There is a column for district that when I assign a number from 101 to 104 it will put the managers name in another column... What I would like to do is to have the bars assign a color based on the district number or managers name... Would I have to create four dirrefent series in order to do this or can it be done in one series?

I don't remember where this chart came from, I think it was a Peltier design but it has been very useful for what I need...

Here is an example, the name have been changed to protect the innocent...

Thanks

[oldchippy]

Hi Maxxscape,

Whether flipping a coin was the best option - not sure, but take a look at this link, it may be that you could work with this?

http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Charts/...nalChart1.html

[Maxxscape]

Maybe I should have used that coin to pay for the RANDBETWEEN function !!

Seriously, I ran across that page awhile back but I got #NAME? all over the table... I wasn't until you brought it up that I did a search and found this...

If this function is not available, and returns the #NAME? error, install and load the Analysis ToolPak add-in.

Now that it is installed, I will look deeper to try and solve this...

Thanks OC

[Maxxscape]

It appears as if he is using different series for the different colors...

[Maxxscape]

After toying with this for quite some time, I figured out that there is no way that data in the same series can have a different color... Unless you do it manually... Can it be done with VBA? Don't know...

I did however, figure out a way to make a change that will pretty much work for what I need...

It also seems that charting with Excel 2003 is limited to 5 series... Could also be due to my limited knowledge... Since two were already used for the original chart, I could only add to three of the four series...

Hey OC, look who is the new manager for district 101

[arlu1201]

Sambo,

Welcome to the Forum, unfortunately:

Your post does not comply with Rule 2 of our Forum RULES. Don't post a question in the thread of another member -- start your own thread. If you feel it's particularly relevant, provide a link to the other thread. It makes sense to have a new thread for your question because a thread with numerous replies can be off putting & difficult to pick out relevant replies.