How to brand Excel charts to match your PowerPoint template
Brand Excel charts to match a PowerPoint template by sharing one Office theme file between the two applications. Export the theme from PowerPoint through Design > Themes > Save Current Theme, apply it in Excel through Page Layout > Themes > Browse for Themes, then save a formatted chart as a .crtx chart template and set it as the default. Charts then inherit the brand palette automatically.
What actually controls chart colours in Office?
The Office theme, stored as a .thmx file. It holds twelve colour slots, made up of four text and background colours, six accent colours and two hyperlink colours. The same file also carries the heading font, the body font and a set of shape effects.
Every chart in Excel, Word and PowerPoint draws from those slots. Series one takes Accent 1, series two takes Accent 2 and so on through to Accent 6. Nothing in a chart is coloured independently until someone overrides it by hand, so the fastest route to branded charts runs through the theme.
How do you move a theme from PowerPoint to Excel?
Open the branded PowerPoint template, go to Design > Themes, click the More arrow at the bottom of the gallery and choose Save Current Theme. Give it the organisation's name and leave it in the default Document Themes folder.
In Excel, go to Page Layout > Themes > Browse for Themes and select that .thmx file. The workbook immediately adopts the brand colours, the brand typefaces and the brand effects. Word uses the same route under Design > Themes > Browse for Themes.
Share the .thmx file itself. Putting it in a SharePoint library, or pushing it to the local Document Themes folder by script, keeps everyone on identical colour values down to the hex.
How do you save a chart template so the formatting is reusable?
Format one chart completely. Set the fonts, remove the border, lighten the axis lines, set the gap width and apply the data label formatting the brand uses. Then right-click the chart area and choose Save as Template, which writes a .crtx file into the Charts folder.
Apply it through Insert > Charts dialog launcher > All Charts > Templates. For an existing chart, right-click it, choose Change Chart Type and pick the template there.
Set a default so nobody has to remember. In the All Charts > Templates view, right-click the saved template and choose Set as Default Chart. Pressing Alt+F1 in Excel then produces a fully branded chart in one keystroke.
A .crtx stores formatting choices instead of fixed hex values, so a chart template created under the brand theme keeps working when the theme is updated. A palette refresh flows through every chart without rebuilding anything.
Why do charts come out in the wrong colour order?
Because accent order is chart order. If Accent 3 in the brand palette is a warning red reserved for alerts, every three-series chart shows red as its third series, and it reads as a problem when it means nothing of the sort.
Order the six accent slots by how useful they are in a chart. Put the primary brand colours in Accents 1 to 3, put supporting neutrals in 4 and 5, and keep any semantic alert colour out of the first six where the option exists.
Series seven onward recycles Accent 1 at a lighter tint, so charts with more than six series lose their distinction quickly. For those, use Chart Design > Change Colours > Monochromatic and pick a single-hue ramp built from one brand accent. At Ideaseed, accent ordering is the change that fixes the most charts in the least time, and it is a five minute edit to the theme.
What is the right way to paste an Excel chart into PowerPoint?
Copy the chart in Excel, then in PowerPoint use Ctrl+Alt+V to choose deliberately. Five options appear, and the choice has consequences.
- Use Destination Theme & Link Data recolours the chart to the PowerPoint template and keeps a live link to the workbook. Best when the deck is updated regularly and both files sit in the same SharePoint location.
- Use Destination Theme & Embed Workbook recolours the chart and stores a copy of the data inside the deck. Best when the file travels outside the organisation.
- Keep Source Formatting & Link Data holds the Excel formatting, which is right only when Excel carries the correct brand theme and PowerPoint does not.
- Keep Source Formatting & Embed Workbook does the same with the data stored locally.
- Picture flattens the chart to an image. Use it for a final PDF where nothing will change.
Use Destination Theme is the default recommendation once both applications share the same .thmx, because the chart then matches whatever the deck's theme says, including after a rebrand. Linked charts refresh through Chart Design > Refresh Data, and the link breaks if the workbook is renamed or moved, so embed for anything sent externally.
Matching Excel charts to a PowerPoint template comes down to one shared theme file and one saved chart template. Export the .thmx from PowerPoint, apply it in Excel, save a .crtx as the default chart, then order the six accent colours for chart legibility. Charts built afterwards are on-brand before anyone touches them.
To get a single theme working across Word, Excel and PowerPoint, talk to us about your template set.
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