There are preset colour sets for graphs in Apple numbers spreadsheet. It’s easy to apply a preset set of colours for a graph. But how do you customise the individual colours of bars or lines within a graph? This took me ages to work out! The trick is to click on the graph, then click on the bar in the graph, then the style window appears. (It’s usually hidden).

Graph Colours

Apple numbers has preset colours that you can select from the pane on the right. The selector looks like this. But you can’t change the colours of the individual bars in a graph from this menu.

Style tab

In the screenshot below you will see a ‘Style’ tab.

If you want to edit the colour of a bar within a graph, without changing all the other colours, you need to select the individual part of the graph to enable the ‘style’ tab.

1. Click on the graph.
2. Click on a bar in the graph. A ‘style’ window will appear on the right of the screen.
3. From the style window you can change the colour of the individual bar.

Here you can see the blue bars on the graph are selected, and the style window is on the right:

No Style Tab

In the screenshot below you will see no ‘Style’ tab.

Here you can see that if the graph (but not the individual bars) is selected, there is no ‘Style’ tab.

Apple has an article about this here:

https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/numbers/tand0842863c/mac