Change the color and size of multiple series in an Excel chart

This tutorial explains how to change the color and/or line thickness and point size of multiple series in a single operation.

Dataset

The data is taken from [Fisher M. (1936). The Use of Multiple Measurements in Taxonomic Problems. Annals of Eugenics, 7, 179 -188] and corresponds to 150 iris flowers described by four variables (sepal length, sepal width, petal length, petal width) and their species. Three different species were included in this study: setosa, versicolor and virginica.

Goal of the tool Colors, thickness, size

In the following example, we first plotted the length of sepals as a function of their width in a scatterplot colored by species:
Let’s add some more intense colors and vary the size of the points per series in order to better visualize the differences between species. Instead of customizing each series individually, let us change the color and the size of the points in all series at the same time using the Color, thickness, size tool feature.
All we need to do is define the color and the size of each group (species here) in any Excel cell range in our data file.

Setting up the Colors, thickness, and size dialog box

• Open XLSTAT.

• Select the graph that you want to customize.

• Go to Visualizing data and open the Colors, thickness and size dialog box

• Select the cells containing the colors for each group on the datasheet in the Colors field.

• Select the cells containing the size of the points for each group in the Size field.

• Click OK.

Output of the Colors, Thickness and size function in XLSTAT

The Colors, thickness and size function applies the changes directly to the selected graph without creating a new result sheet.

In this tutorial, we customized the color and size of the points in a scatterplot in Excel depending on the flower species with just three clicks.

Need to learn how to interpret a scatterplot? Read our tutorial.