Gradient fill in Excel chart

[Kinseres]

Hi guys

I'm hoping someone can help me with the visual look of a column graph I've put together. I've established how to setup a gradient fill for a data series, however each gradient is relative to the size of each column.

Instead, I am looking to have the same gradient across all columns in the series, irrespective of column size.

Do any of you magicians know how to accomplish such a feat a feat of techno-wizardry?? Manually trying to adjust the Stop position for each column still does not give the right effect as the gradient fade is also relative to colum size.

 

[Michael_E]

If I'm reading this right I think you want your columns to change color at the same rate regardless of size, for instance, if your table Y value was from 1-100 you'd want any columns to be red above 90, and lighter red from 80-90 etc etc but for a column that only goes to 50 you wouldn't want to get to red.

So you can do that, but it's a bit of a process...

1: choose and apply whatever gradient you want to use and apply it to the data series, once that is done stretch the chart out horizontally as much as you can, for the next step you're going to want your columns as fat as possible.
2: Ctrl+PrtScrn and open mspaint, Ctrl+V on to the blank canvas and then cut out the tallest column you have, assuming that column shows the whole range of colors you want to use, once you've cut that column out open a new image in mspaint and shrink the canvas size down so it's only your column and no white space, save the picture.
3: on your chart, go to format data series, fill, select picture or texture fill, click the insert from file button and select the image you saved in step 2, click the stack radial button and that should be what I think you're asking for.

 

[Kinseres]

Ha! So simple! I never even thought about using a picture fill instead. Thanks very much Michael, that was really helpful and got me the visual effect that I was after

 

[Michael_E]

Yeah, to be honest I had already typed out "I don't think this is possible", and then I decided to just start poking around and realized it could be done with the image fill. I'm glad it worked for you.

 

[reneev]

OMG, I have spent all morning trying to figure this out and found some other method that worked OK but wasn't exactly what they wanted. Had I seen this thread, I would have not wasted so much time!!!! ARG! But next month will sooo much easier!

 

[reneev]

To add some additional information, if you will need to add/adjust your gradient stops if you have specific ranges. For example, I needed the colors to apply to a value range so I had to adjust the stops so that it started turning color around the values below.

0	6.74
6.75	7.74
7.75	10

<tbody>
</tbody>

Then, once it was added as a picture, I had to "stack and scale" to make sure it didn't go over and repeat.