Chart Widget - Use different colours in the same Bar Graph

Troy Filson
edited 12/09/19 in Smartsheet Basics

I have created a bar graph in the chart widget feature. It would be great to have each of the bars appear as different colours. Right now, the bars are only one colour, which is unappealing and not matching my company branding. Is there any way to do that?

Capture.JPG

Comments

  • Alejandra
    Alejandra Employee

    Hi Troy, 

    You can certainly change the color of the bars in your chart! To change the bar color, edit the Chart Widget and select a bar. Once you've selected a bar, the Series section to the right of the Edit Chart Widget window will let you apply a color using the color picker. 

    I hope this helps!

     

  • Hi Alejandra,

    I'm sorry, but your answer is incorrect. I cannot simply select one bar of the graph to change the colour.

    I have followed the steps you provided (and indeed tried them before your response) but there is not an apparent way to select individual bars of my graph.

    If I'm misunderstanding, would you kindly provide a screenshot of what you see as the solution?

    Thank you for your help!

  • Alejandra
    Alejandra Employee
    edited 12/10/18

    Hi Troy,

    I apologize if I've misinformed you! I'd be happy to provide a screen capture. If you're unable to change the color of a bar by clicking on it, try expanding the "Series" section to apply a different color.

     

    Screen Shot 2018-12-10 at 8.38.48 AM.png

  • Thanks Alejandra. If I expand the Series section, I can indeed change the colour, but only the entire graph. I cannot seem to change only 1 bar at a time. I see the screen capture you sent and that's what I'm trying to do, but it simply isn't working on my bar graph.

    Is there something special you're doing?

     

     

    Bar Graph Smartsheet.png

  • Alejandra
    Alejandra Employee

    Hi Troy, 

    Based on your screen capture it looks like your data may be contained within two columns (see screen capture). If so, you can either switch the rows and columns in your chart (under the Chart & Data section), or you could change the way your data is structured (see screen capture of my data table). 

    I hope this helps!

    Screen Shot 2018-12-11 at 10.16.38 AM.png

    Screen Shot 2018-12-11 at 10.12.23 AM.png

  • Hi Alejandra. Thank you for your continued help.

    It seems like I cannot change the bar graph colours because the graph is drawing information from a report which summarises all the project completion under my responsibility.

    This seems like a system issue that would have to be an enhancement.

    Thank you again.

  • I am running into the same issue as Troy. Is there a plan to allow coloring of different bars when the data is in 2 columns?

  • John Jonassen
    John Jonassen ✭✭✭✭

    @Dan Rogers ,

    Simply put, this is not available within Smartsheet at this time. When it is a 2 column data set, it supports both axes and the count which provides each bar with their height.

    But what Alejandra has in her's is an additional component of the color, giving her a 3rd piece of data. Additionally, she is using a Column chart, which is where the ability to provide additional color options comes into play.

  • Thanks for this tip. It wasn't obvious at all that this was possible.