“it is irrelevant to Excel 2007″

I’m pretty sure even in Excel 2007, the [ColorN] custom number format option still uses the 56 color index. This would help in changing that index spectrum.

So it’s not completely irrelevant. But I get your meaning.

I did try out the Chart Tamer, and I did like the colors it uses. The interface was a bit awkward, at least at first, though compared to any version of any Office application it was totally excellent.

One thing that bothered me about the Chart Tamer was the way it applied its color palette without sufficient warning. In general it’s not such a bad thing. However, if I had designed a corporate palette to match the logo of a client, this color scheme was likely to be wiped out by the Chart Tamer’s palette. Even if it were not obliterated, the colors would probably have to be assigned to different color index values, so any affected workbook would have to be recolored.

While this is not really a fault of the Chart Tamer, it was enough of a problem that I decided to uninstall it.

Have you had a chance to use the Tamer colors?

http://peltiertech.com/WordPress/bonavista-releases-chart-tamer/

Maureen Stone (a color expert who designed the colors for Tableau) designed a color palette for Chart Tamer. She used Stephen Few colors (the ones you use in your color picker tool) as a Starting point and created a set colors tables.

Maureen published a nice PDF file where she describes the process of creating the Tamer colors:
http://www.stonesc.com/Vis08_Workshop/slides/Chart%20Tamer%20Colors.pdf

Andreas

Fortunately I am not completely color blind but do have trouble between certain colors. I hate it when the weather man shows maps of swirling colors and says the area of green is clear but red is stormy. Which area is which color?

Other formatting schemes are much more universally recognized such as stripes, checker board, and poka dots, all using black and white of course.

There’s really been no *lack* of colors in Excel. 56 colors are way more than are needed for most purposes. The problem is that people don’t know how to select an effective palette of 56 good colors. Even if they know how to use Tools – Options, the average user is hard-pressed to come up with anything much better than the default color palette. This is a gap which resources like ColorBrewer and Stephen Few’s books and white papers fill very well.