Share different chart fills across iWork '09 apps

Jan 23, '09 07:30:03AM

Contributed by: Sesquipedalian

Strangely, in iWork '09 the different apps do not have the same color fills available for making charts. Keynote has one set, while Pages and Numbers have a different set. At first sight, therefore, it would seem like one cannot make a chart in Keynote that uses the Marble fill (since that is only available in Pages and Numbers), nor a Numbers chart that uses the Retro fill. But it can be done!

For this example, we will make a chart in Pages that uses a fill from Keynote.

Open Pages and Keynote. Make a new chart in each app. Open the Inspector panel in both apps, and select the Charts tab (making sure the chart is still selected). Next, click on the Chart Colors button in Keynote. This will show the available chart fills in a floating palette. Now arrange your windows so that you can see both Keynote's chart fills palette, and your Pages chart -- minimizing the Keynote window is a good way to do this. Do not switch to Pages, as this will cause Keynote's floating palettes to vanish. Just arrange things such that you can see the Pages chart while Keynote remains the foreground application.

Now just choose a fill from the Keynote palette, and drag it onto the desired part of the Pages chart. That's it. The Pages chart will now happily display the fill you brought over from Keynote.

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