Google Sheets now supports customizing color of the individual data points in its charts. Just learn how to change data point colors in charts. This will help you to make unique charts in Google Spreadsheets.

Using this you can change the color of individual bars in a Bar chart, columns in a Column chart, bubbles in a Bubble chart and so on.

Here are a few examples with some of the charts that support individual data point color in it. The Bar and Column charts are the most prominent one among them.

The Bar chart is one of the most commonly used charts in Google Sheets. So let me start with how to change individual bar color in this chart.

Changing the data point color in a Bar/Column chart means changing the individual bar or column colors.

Note: If you are unfamiliar with any of the Google Sheets charts mentioned in this tutorial, please first read this tutorial – Google Sheets Charts: Built-in Charts, Dynamic Charts, and Custom Charts.

Change Data Point Colors in a Bar Chart in Sheets

To change individual bar color, what you want to do is to change the data point color.

In the above Bar chart as you can see the individual bar color of data points “China” and “DPR Korea” got changed. How I have changed that individual bar color?

Here is that example:

I have this data to plot the chart. Column A contains the labels to show up on the vertical axis. Column B contains numeric values.

As usual, create the Bar chart using the menu Insert > Chart. Select the “Bar chart” in the Chart Editor. Now here is the important step, i.e. changing individual bar color.

Steps to Change the Individual Bar Color in Bar Charts

To customize the color of the bar, go to the “Customize” tab of the Chart editor. In that, under “Series”, click on the “Add” button against the “Format data point”.

This will prompt you to select the data point. It’s actually a drop-down menu. Here I am selecting “Japan”.

Now you can change that individual bar color as below.

You can follow the above steps in all the supporting charts. That means you may follow the above steps to change data point colors in charts in Google Sheets.

Change Individual Column Color in Column Chart

I think if I repeat each and every step again it will be quite boring. So, I am taking you through the steps in a nutshell.

Just follow the below steps to change the individual column color in a Column chart in Sheets.

Sample Data: Same as above.

There are two tabs on the chart editor – “Setup” and “Customize”. Under the “Setup” tab, select “Chart type” as “Column chart”.

Under the “Customize” tab, click on “Series”. Click the button “Add” and choose the data point.

Then choose the color to change the individual column color of that data point. Likewise, you can add more ‘format’ data points and choose individual colors.

Custom Colors for Pie Chart Slices (Individual Series) in Google Sheets

Unlike the above Bar and Column charts, in the Pie chart, there is no data point to change the color.

By default, each slice (series) has different colors in Pie chart. You can change that default color to your choice.

In the below Pie chart, I have manually changed the Pie slice color based on the quantity it represents. Higher the quantity, darker the color.

I like this custom slice color option in the Google Sheets Pie chart as it takes my chart to the next level.

How can we customize the Slice color in Pie chart as above?

Look no further. It’s under the Chart editor > Customize tab > Series. There you can directly pick each series by its name and change the color.

We are talking about how to change data point colors in charts in Google Sheets. Is that applicable to the Line chart too?

Custom Data Point Color in Line Chart in Sheets

First I thought of skipping the Line chart in this guide, i.e, how to change data point colors in charts.

Since there is nothing to fill, you can show data points in different shapes on the Line chart. Just look for that under the Customize tab > Series. It’s similar to adding “Format data point” in the Bar and Column chart.

Here additionally you need to select the “Point” Shape. I am not going into the details as it’s not much relevant.

Custom coloring is important in another two charts. They are Scatter and Bubble chart.

Customize the Bubble Color in Google Sheets Bubble Chart

Now you can change each bubble color in Google Sheets Bubble chart. How?

Each bubble in a Bubble chart is actually series. So here follow the Pie chart color customization which I have detailed above.

I mean under the Customize > Series, pick each series and change the color manually.

Still having doubt? See how to change the bubble color in Bubble chart in Google Sheets below.

Before concluding this post on how to change data point colors in charts, there is one more chart to look in to. That is none other than the popular Scatter chart.

Multi Color Scatter Chart in Google Sheets

Now in the Scatter chart, you can change each series color. Earlier it was a boring single color data points in Scatter.

To get a multi-color Scatter chart, customize the color of each series manually. Here you must follow the Column / Bar chart approach, i.e. adding “format data points”.

Conclusion:

It’s happy to see that Google has sorted out much of the issues prevailed in its charts. I could see that the earlier problems like the annotation not appearing in the Timeline chart has gone!