Excel changes multiple series colors at once

Copper Contributor

I have a simple X-Y chart with five series of markers, no lines. When I change the color of the markers on Series 5, Series 1 also changes to the same color, and when I change Series 1 back to the color it was, Series 5 also changes. It's like they've been linked somehow. Has anyone else seen this issue?

9 Replies

@AshaKantaSharma, thank you for responding but that link does not address my problem. I'm not trying to change only one or two points, I'm changing the color of the full series, and a different series is changing at the same time. I believe it's a bug in Excel. 

@WesJD can u pls share the file?

@bhushan_z Today I can't reproduce the problem. I think it originated after I copied a chart within a sheet; the original chart behaved normally, but the copy had the behavior I described. I'll watch for it to happen again and post the file if it does. Thanks for your interest!

@WesJD This is funny. I'm trying to achieve the exact opposite of what you're describing here. I have a dataset of 100 iterations and I wish to have them all in one color. Why? Because these are all generated simulations that are based on a single original dataset. I want to make a chart where only the original dataset has a unique color from the other 100 iterations and I don't feel like going through the color of every single one of those 100 series just to change it, then find out that the color is wrong, so I end up changing it again.

 

TL;DR I'm trying to create your bug on purpose

@AhmedMahmoud23 This could be done with VBA. I have some dummy data, an original series plus four iterations (but it can be as many as you want, up to Excel's limit). The original chart is at top right. In "Chart Before" I have formatted the original series with a black line and the first iteration with a gray line. "Chart After" is the result of a simple VBA procedure, below the screenshot.

 

FormatSeriesTheSame.png

 

Sub FormatSeriesTheSame()
  If ActiveChart Is Nothing Then
    MsgBox "Select a chart and try again!", vbExclamation
    GoTo ExitSub
  End If
  
  With ActiveChart
    Dim iColor As Long
    iColor = .SeriesCollection(2).Format.Line.ForeColor.RGB
    Dim iSeries As Long
    For iSeries = 3 To .SeriesCollection.Count
      .SeriesCollection(iSeries).Format.Line.ForeColor.RGB = iColor
    Next
  End With
  
ExitSub:
End Sub

 

Thanks you for the help. It worked perfectly :)

@WesJD I also just started experiencing this bug when I copied a scatter plot. Did you have to make any changes to resolve it or did the issue resolve itself? Thank you!

@Willow_C, I don't remember how I dealt with the issue. It only happened once to me. Weird.