Change the individual bar colors of my bar chart in Grapher

Changing the color of individual bars using a color table

Use a color table when you need to define many colors (or a color palette) to fill each bar in order. You can define as many colors as you wish. By default, the colors in your color table will repeat if you have more bars than colors defined.

1. Click the Bar Chart in the Object Manager to select it.
2. In the Property Manager, click on the Fill tab.
3. Check the box next to Use color table. The bar chart will change to a variety of default colors.
4. Click Set button next to the Color table command.
5. In the Color Table dialog, make any changes to customize the individual bar colors or patterns. The colors will appear in the order they are listed on the left side of the dialog. To change a color or pattern, click on the color on the left side and make changes on the right side of the dialog.
6. Click OK to update the plot.
7. To show a legend of the Color table fill colors, check the Show color table legend on the Fill tab in the Property Manager. 

Changing the color of individual bars using a worksheet color column/row

Use a color column or row in your worksheet to specify individual colors for each bar in your chart. Together with the worksheet data used to create your bar chart, a separate worksheet row or column that contains your color values must be present. Color names in this column must be listed as RGB/RGBA values [rgb(0,0,0) for example] for Grapher to read them.

1. Click the Bar Chart in the Object Manager to select it.
2. In the Property Manager, click on the Fill tab.
3. Click None next to Color variable and select the worksheet color column/row. The bars are each filled appropriately.

• To determine appropriate color names, click on any filled object in Grapher. On the Fill page in the Property Manager, click the color next to Foreground color. Select the desired color and the color name is shown.

Select the desired color and the color name appears beside it.

• RGB and RGBA values in the color column/row can be specified in these formats:
  • RGB(255, 255, 255)
  • \COLOR(255, 255, 255, 255)
  • R255 G255 B255
  • R255 G255 B255 A255
  • \RGBR255 \RGBG255 \RGBB255

Updated May 2023