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Moving color palettes from template files

I was disappointed when Numbers recently started using highly saturated colors in the Fill Color swatches (they used to be more pastel). I save pastel colors in my own swatches in the Colors dialog, but they are more time consuming to apply that Numbers' own Fill dropdown menu.


I notice that some templates (such as Business > Invoices and the Meal Planner) each have a different selection of colors in the color palettes, and the top row are more useful (pale) colors suitable for headings with black text.


Is there any way to export or move color palettes between documents? Or any way to make the Invoices colors the "default"?


I was able to delete the Invoice data*, save it as a "blank" file, then copy and paste my own spreadsheets into the blank file. Now I have useful colors in the Fill menu! And I can use this blank file for a template going forward. Is this the only way?


Would love a way to import, export and save color palettes from the templates. Or at least change the default settings. (similar to Photoshop etc.)


(* If you want to do this, you need to right-click on the blue bars in the Invoice and select Unlock, then you can delete those elements.)

Numbers-OTHER

Posted on Nov 16, 2015 9:28 AM

Reply
3 replies

Nov 23, 2015 11:08 AM in response to CrishQ

Hi CrishQ,


The templates seem to store their own colour palettes.

Here is one from Template Chooser > All > Blank

User uploaded file


Here is the template Business > Invoices

User uploaded file

To preserve those pastel colours,

  • save the template as a document. (Save, not Save as Template);
  • Insert a new Sheet (Tab);
  • Delete the original Sheet;
  • Save! Then maybe Save as Template with a new name (My Pastel Colours 1).


You will retain the palette from the template to use in new tables.

User uploaded file

Note that templates also store their own table styles.

You may want to format the cell borders 😉:

User uploaded file


Regards,

Ian.


Edited by Ian.

Nov 23, 2015 11:14 AM in response to Yellowbox

Thanks Ian, that was helpful. Although I had already made a new "template" file with the pastel colors. I was hoping I was missing a way to easily apply this pastel color palette to my many existing spreadsheets, which used to have light colors but were all replaced by the saturated colors in the Yosemite upgrade.


So I guess I have to copy & paste my spreadsheets into my new template, and hope that another upgrade in the future doesn't overwrite the pastel palette.

Moving color palettes from template files

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