Excel: Color templates for charts?

I have a few charts and I would like to have them in the same colors. So I made myself a list with 30 colors but I have no idea if I can implement those in some template and how to apply this template to my charts

Also, I would have to assign those colors to entries. I have for example an entry called "R&D Investment" that needs to be red in all charts it appears

Solution 1:

You can format one of your charts the way you want it to appear, select it by clicking on the chart, and then Save as Template... under the chart menu. In the chart below, I've colored the individual bars of the series differently, and saved it as a template.

You can apply your templates to other charts, by choosing the template as the Chart Type. Your saved templates are located at the bottom of the Other tab under Chart Type.

The only wrinkle here is that Excel applies the colors saved in your template to the bars in the order that they appear. In the chart below, I've reversed the order of the data, and applied the template.

So if you format the R&D series to be red, it will be red in other charts that you apply the template to as long as it is in the same position in those charts.

These charts have only one data series, and I've colored the individual data points. But if your chart has multiple series, you can change the order of the series by clicking one of the series and choosing Data Series... under the Format menu. In that dialog, you'll see an Order section where you can move a series up or down in the list.