Apply Color to Visualizations
Use color to enhance your visualizations. For example, you might change the default color pallet for analyses in a workbook.
About Color Assignments in Visualizations
You can work with color to make visualizations more attractive, dynamic, and informative. You can color a series of measure values (for example, Sales or Forecasted Sales) or a series of attribute values (for example, Product and Brand).
Your color choices are shared across all visualizations on the canvas, so if you change the series or data point color in one visualization, then it appears on the other visualizations.
The Visualize canvas has a Color section in the Grammar Panel where you can put a measure column, attribute column, or set of attributes columns. The canvas assigns color to the columns that are included in the Color section:
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When a measure is in the Color section, then you can select different measure range types (for example, single color, two color, and three color) and specify advanced measure range options (for example, reverse, number of steps, and midpoint).
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When you’ve one attribute in the Color section, then the stretch palette is used by default. Color palettes contain a set number of colors (for example, 12 colors), and those colors repeat in the visualization. The stretch palette extends the colors in the palette so that each value has a unique color shade.
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If you’ve multiple attributes in the Color section, then the hierarchical palette is used by default, but you can choose to use the stretch palette, instead. The hierarchical palette assigns colors to groups of related values. For example, if the attributes in the Color section are Product and Brand and you’ve selected Hierarchical Palette, then in your visualization, each brand has its own color, and within that color, each product has its own shade.
Access Color Options
You can set color options for your workbook and for individual visualizations within your workbook.
- On the Home page, hover over a workbook, click Actions (
), and then select Open.
- If you want to edit color options for the whole workbook:
- Click Menu on the workbook toolbar and select Workbook Properties.
- Use the General tab to edit the color series or continuous coloring.
- If you want to edit color options for a visualization.
- Select the visualization and click Menu or right-click.
- Select Color. The available color options depend on how the
measures and attributes are set up in your visualization.
- You can experiment with visualization colors and select Reset Visualization Colors to revert to the original colors.
- Select Stretch Palette to turn this option on or off.
Color palettes have a set number of colors, and if your visualization contains more values than the number of color values, then the palette colors are repeated. Use the Stretch Palette option to expand the number of colors in the palette. Stretch coloring adds light and dark shades of the palette colors to give each value a unique color. For some visualizations, stretch coloring is used by default.
Change the Color Palette
You can switch between the various color palettes until you find the one you want.
Each color palette contains 12 colors that you can apply to a visualization.
- On the Home page, hover over a workbook, click Actions (), and then select Open.
- Select a visualization to change the color palette for.
- Click Menu or right-click and select Color, then select Manage Assignments.
- Locate the Series Color Palette and click the color palette that’s currently used in the visualization (for example, Default or Alta).
- From the list, select the color palette that you want to apply to the visualization.
Assign Colors to Columns
Instead of using the palette’s default colors, you can choose specific colors to fine-tune the look of your visualizations.
- On the Home page, hover over a workbook, click Actions (), and then select Open.
- Select the visualization that you want to manage the colors for.
- Click Menu on the visualization toolbar or right-click and select Color, then select Manage Assignments.
- If you’re working with a measure column, you can do the following:
- Click the box containing the color assigned to the measure. From the color picker dialog, select the color that you want to assign to the measure. Click OK.
- Specify how you want the color range to be displayed for the measure (for example, reverse the color range, pick a different color range, and specify how many shades you want in the color range).
- If you’re working with an attribute column, then click the box containing the color
assignment that you want to change. From the color picker
dialog, select the color that you want to assign to the
value. Click OK.
