Howto: Set default coloring in powerpoint 2000 chart?

Aye,

That is how you can change a chart color in a presentation. I would like to do it in the POT (Template) file. Goal being that if a user inserts a new slide with a chart on it, it will have the company default color scheme.

Grtz.©

D.

D,

What you want to do first is open the POT file (you want to work in the file itself, not a new file created from the template).

Now, insert the type of graph you want. Double click to enter the MS-Graph interface, and then on the top menu bar, click"Tools\Options". Select the "Color" tab and you can set the default line and fill colors.

Next step is to go to "Chart\Chart Type". Pick the "Custom Types" tab. Toward the bottom left, you will see a radio button for the option "User Defined". Click on this, and you will see a button towards the bottom left that says "Add". Click this and then give your chart a name your end-users will recognize.

After this, you may want to click the botton that says "Set as Default Chart". This will help ensure that your users are using the correct format.

Chuck

Another option to try is to open the .POT file and select "Format" and Slide Color Scheme.  Select the "Custom" tab and you can set up colors on that pop-up window.

(then you have to test it by creating a chart)

DeeDee

Hi,

C Chambers:
Thanks for the suggestion, but it does not work. I have defined the chart the way it should be defined and saved it as a custom chart and set it as the default chart. Then I close the POT file and try to base a new presentation on it. When I insert the chart, the coloring is default (as in Slide Color scheme default). It took the default coloring from the slide, not from what I have defined. When I apply the custom chart type to it, everything changes _except_ coloring. I followed your instructions to the letter and step by step. What did I do wrong?

ddhamm:
I have already done that and it works for the first four colors of the chart. The background color and text color are two things I don't want to define in my slide color scheme because they mess up the slide itself.

Grtz.©

David.

Hi David,

My error . . . to get the color to stay, you need to define the colors for your chart outside of the standard 8. In other words, select the first series, and select the color from the Standard colors at the top. These will not change based on the color scheme. You can then set the colors for the other 7 bars as well. Note that you can still change the standard colors to whatever ones you want in the "Tools\Options" window as you did before.

Chuck

Chuck,

I tried what you suggested, but I am sorry to report that even the default colors I setup with "Tools" and "Options", tab "Color" are reset to the slide color scheme. I begin to suspect a rights problem in the registry or POT file or something because of the way this tool/application behaves itself. Even if I enter MS-Graph itself to set the options, they are reset to some built-in default, it seems the settings are simply not saved on the machine.

I did notice however that the series fill color was set to "Automatic" and reset to nothing when I clicked the default color (that was in fact taken from the "Tools” and "Options” dialog). Do we have any clue on what is going on here? I hope you guys can help me with this.

Grtz.©

David.

Hi David,

I can also see in my tests that what you are seeing is acurate. I am going to try to find the solution for you . . . every avenue I have checked so far says that it should work, but it obviously doesn't. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Chuck

Hi,

It has been a while since the last post on this question and I was wondering if somebody has more information about the problem at hand. So far I have found a lot of information about coloring in PowerPoint but they all come to the same conclusion: Coloring in PowerPoint < 2002 is just defunct ional and very tricky to achieve.

Right now I’ve modified my default color schemes so they have multiple options (Normal slide, Chart Slide, Flowchart Slide, etc.) In my documentation I explain the different schemes and their usage. It is up to the reviewer to detect and report incorrect usage.

Grtz.&copy;

D.

Hi,

So far, your solution is the best way I've seen. There are some limitations that shouldn't be there in MS-Office, so the best way to get around them is with well documented options. I wish I could find a better way for you, but so far, I haven't. I don't like to be beaten by software, especially Microsoft software, so I will keep trying, though : )

Chuck

Hi Daleoran,

My research and experience on this issue have not given the user a better solution than he came up with himself. I would recommend refunding his points. Sorry I couldn't get a better solution - yet : )

Chuck

Hi,

Didn't abandon the question, just hoping for a miracle it seems. I agree with Chuck here, the issue is still not solved in the way it should (if at all possible) be solved. I have come up with a semi-work around that seems to work. If there were a structural solution I would sure love to know about it, but to be frank: I'm afraid there isn't. This seems to be one of those issues that are present in Microsoft Office (might have to do because of all the tequila-sunrises the MS dev team drank on Friday / Saturday evenings).

Grtz.&copy;

David.