Numbers - Reset to Default Colour Palette

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Level 1

9 points

Numbers - Reset to Default Colour Palette

I have a series of matching spreadsheets, but one of them has a muted palette of colours compared to the rest. I'd like it to match the brighter colour palette on the rest of the spreadsheets, which is also the default colour palette I get when I create a new document.

I'm not sure why this one spreadsheet has muted colours - I've never intentionally changed to custom colours - but I wonder if it might have been caused by combining it with an Excel spreadsheet at some point in its history - perhaps the colours are default in Excel? Or perhaps it's related to an older version of Numbers and a software update. I think it is an older spreadsheet than the others.

Everything appears to match in terms of settings, except for the actual colours. I can see the colours are definitely different because they have different HEX numbers etc when I look in the Colour Fill dialogue.

In my spreadsheets, individual cells are coloured in a complex system denoting different stages in tasks, so I can't easily start again in a new document. Also, if I copy and paste the muted spreadsheet content into a new document, I find it also copies the muted colour palette.

How do I make the muted colour palette match the brighter default colour palette? Is there a preference somewhere that I can just reset?

Images attached below. Any ideas appreciated!

iMac 27″, macOS 12.4

Posted on Jul 14, 2022 10:05 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Badunit

Level 7

28,084 points

Jul 15, 2022 3:53 AM in response to thom213

I am curious what you did differently from me that resulted in the palette changing in the new document. Here is what I did and the palette stayed as the same default Numbers palette:

Created an Excel file. I used the "wood" theme so the colors would be obviously different.
Imported it into Numbers. The palette in Numbers is the "wood" colors in this document.
Put some data in the table. Used some color fills from the palette in the table.
Created a new Numbers document. The color palette is the standard one Numbers uses.
Deleted the default table just to get it out of the way.
Went to the imported document and copied the table
Went to the new document and Pasted.

At the end, the fills already in the table remained the same colors but the standard Numbers palette remains for new fills or to overwrite the fills that were already used.

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Answer 2

Badunit

Level 7

28,084 points

Jul 14, 2022 6:52 PM in response to thom213

That is interesting. A recent question was asked about how to change the colors in the palette. No one knew. And now here is your post with different palettes. Apparently it can be done but darned if I know how.

I see that the theme used in Excel carries over to the palette in Numbers when the file is imported but I do not know how to change it once it is set.

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Answer 3

Badunit

Level 7

28,084 points

Jul 14, 2022 7:48 PM in response to Badunit

If your document is all on one sheet, you can Select All, Copy, then Paste into a new Numbers document.

If your document is multiple sheets and no formulas or charts on a sheet reference cells on other sheets, you can repeat that process for the other sheets.

If your document is multiple sheets with formulas that reference other sheets, if you can move everything to one sheet you can do the same copy/paste as mentioned above.

If your documents are all basically the same except for the data, you could duplicate one of the good ones then copy/paste the data from the oddball one into the duplicate to recreate it.

Apple uses a proprietary iwa format for files internal to a Numbers document so it is not possible to read them or modify them (as far as I know). I tried replacing with the style file with one from another Numbers document but all it does is corrupt the document.

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Answer 4

thom213 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 15, 2022 1:42 AM in response to Badunit

Thanks for the suggestions. I can make a duplicate of the good spreadsheet and copy in the data from the bad one, but I also need to copy the cell colour as these let me know the stages I’ve reached with various tasks. The problem is that when I copy the colour fills into the new spreadsheet, this changes the palette to the muted one.

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Answer 5

thom213 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jul 15, 2022 8:39 AM in response to Badunit

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all the suggestions - all sorted. I found that I could copy the muted colours sheet into a bright colours template document. Thought the muted colours copied over, the palette now remains at the bright default colours and I can manually go through each cell and convert it to the brighter colour. Laborious but worked.

Thanks again everyone!

Thom

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Answer 6

stfflspl

Level 3

587 points

Jul 15, 2022 4:16 AM in response to Badunit

Badunit

you copied the table, instead of the sheet.

That will make the difference.

Paul.

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Answer 7

Badunit

Level 7

28,084 points

Jul 15, 2022 7:45 AM in response to stfflspl

Must be something else. I followed the same steps as above but copy/pasted the sheet to the new document and it had no effect on the color palette. The palette remained correct.

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