Recently, someone asked me why all the columns in their pivot chart were the same colour. The chart showed several months of data, for multiple regions, and every column was blue.
In the screen shot below, I’ve created a similar pivot chart, from fake sales data.
Change the Pivot Field Layout
In this example, the chart shows sales data, per city, over two years. When the chart is created, all the columns are the same color, because there is only one series. It’s easy to change though – if you want to see columns with different colors, move one of the fields into the Column area in the PivotTable Field List.
- Click on the Pivot Chart, to select it. NOTE: When a Pivot Chart is selected, the area names change — Rows becomes Axis (Categories) and Columns becomes Legend (Series)
- In the PivotChart Fields window, drag a field from the Axis (Categories) box, to the Legend (Series) box. That creates a series for each item in that field, and shows each series in a different color.
Columns With Different Colors
After you move one of the fields into the Column (Legend) area, the chart changes, and shows columns with different colors. In the first screen shot below, the OrderYr field was moved. Now there is a series for each year, with 2014 in blue and 2015 in orange.
If you moved the City field instead, a series would be created for each city.
Watch the Video
To see the steps for creating a pivot chart, and changing its layout, watch this short video.
Download the Sample File
To follow along with the video, go to my Contextures website, and download the sample file on my Pivot Charts page.
The zipped file is in xlsx format, and does not contain any macros
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