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numbers colors

Does anyone know what determines the "pre-determined" fill colors in Numbers? I mean the grid of colors that appears below the Cell/Color Fill pulldown menu when you just click on the downward caret. I used to have nice bright colors there including a yellow, but now in Catalina, I only have a grid of dull blue, garnet, olive, purple, teal and orange. I tried different table styles with no luck. This may have been influenced by my importing Excel spreadsheets? It's driving me a bit batty as sometimes I open a spreadsheet and the grid of brighter colors is available for filling. What is going on?


BTW- some of the Numbers instructions say to select a cell and then the Style tab which I do not see under Format in my version, Numbers 6.2.1.

iMac Pro

Posted on Mar 17, 2020 2:14 PM

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Posted on Mar 17, 2020 11:14 PM

Hi WorkerBee,


Try the colour window (Color Fill) by clicking on the rainbow wheel to the right of the "downward caret" palette. Command Shift C will toggle the colour window on/off.



There are many options there. Explore and enjoy!


Regards,

Ian.

2 replies

Mar 18, 2020 1:18 AM in response to Yellowbox

Hi again, WorkerBee,


I think that the colours that appear in the "downward caret" palette depend upon which template was used to create the document (and you could be right about documents imported from Excel with a limited range of colours). I don't know how to change the palette.


However, that will not affect all documents. Find a document that shows bright colours in that palette. Delete unnecessary content and Save as Template, perhaps with the name "Bright". It will appear in your Template Chooser under My Templates.


To make that "Bright" template the default when you start a new document, go to Numbers > Preferences > General > For New Spreadsheets > Use template.

These are my Numbers preferences



Click on Change Template and choose "Bright".


Note: with those Numbers preferences, Menu >File > New... (command N) no longer opens the Template Chooser; it opens your preferred Template.

To access the Template Chooser, you need to hold down the option key to see New from Template Chooser... in the File Menu


Regards,

Ian.

numbers colors

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