Although we mention that this tutorial works for both PowerPoint 2007 and 2010, the actual techniques work only within
PowerPoint 2010. The reason why this does not work well within PowerPoint 2007 is because
that version had no option for pattern fills, however if you work within PowerPoint 2010 using the procedure outlined on this page, you'll find that
any changes you make show up in PowerPoint 2007 as well.
By default when you choose to
invert the fill for any negative option in a series of a
chart, you end up seeing those negative series in the default white color only, not a great default if your slide background is white or if you want
negative series to show in red. In this tutorial, we show you how you can get over this limitation in PowerPoint 2010 using a workaround.
Follow these steps to change the color of any negative data series in your PowerPoint 2010 charts:
- You must have a chart that has negative values, as shown in Figure 1. Select the data series by clicking on it (again see
Figure 1). Alternatively you can select the data series from the
chart elements dropdown list.
Figure 1: Selected chart element (data series)
- Activate the Chart Tools Layout tab of the Ribbon. Towards the
extreme left of the Ribbon tab, make sure that you have the correct data series selected, then click the Format Selection button
(highlighted in red in Figure 2).
Figure 2: Format Selection button
- This summons the Format Data Series dialog box, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Format Data Series
- At this point, we are assuming that you have selected the Invert if Negative option (highlighted in
red in Figure 3) within the Fill tab. Next select the Pattern fill
option, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Pattern fill
- As soon as you select the Pattern fill option, several patterns show up within this dialog box (refer to
Figure 4). You'll also find two color dropdown boxes under the pattern swatches. As you can see, the foreground color matches the
fill color for the positive columns, and the background color matches with the fill for the negative columns.
- We will now make some changes, from the patterns themselves, we choose the 5% pattern (the top-left, first pattern, this is most inconspicious
pattern), and then we choose a solid color from the background color dropdown, as you can see in Figure 5. Red was chosen since that
color seems to go well with the negative concept.
Figure 5: Background color
- Click Close to go back to your chart with the new fills.
- Figure 6 shows how the chart looks now, as you can see, the colors of the columns are actually reversed from what we wanted! So
we need to remedy that next.
Figure 6: Different column colors
- We summoned the Format Data Series dialog box again, under the Fill tab, we choose the
Solid fill option, as shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7: Solid fill
- Setting the fills back to Solid fill sets the colors in the chart series to the right values. Click the Close
button to get back to the chart.
- Figure 8 shows the correct chart with no patterns, and distinctly different colors for positive and negative columns. As you can
see in Figure 8, our sample chart has only one Data Series. But there's no reason why you cannot use the same steps for any other
series if your chart has multiple series.
Figure 8: Chart with changed colors
- Save your presentation.
See Also:
Changing Color for Negative Data Series of
Charts in PowerPoint 2013 for Windows
Changing Color for Negative Data Series of
Charts in PowerPoint 2011 for Mac
Changing Color for Negative Data Series in PowerPoint 2002
and 2003 Charts for Windows
