Reference

The colour and font panels

Decks, reports, dashboards, stories, the brand kit and the dashboard theme manager choose a colour in one colour panel and a font in one font panel. A colour or font field is a tile that shows what it holds: a colour’s swatch with its name or code, a font’s name in its own face. Choose the tile to open its panel. In a deck, a report, a dashboard or a story it opens in the selection’s panel at the right, with Back at its head (or Esc) to close it; a dashboard’s Back returns to the same tab and the same open sections of Card settings, on the tile that opened it. In the brand kit, the theme manager and a dashboard’s Customize… it opens under the tile, with the field’s name and Close at its head, and Esc or a click outside closes it.

Where	Colour tiles	Font tiles
Decks	A shape’s Fill colour and Outline colour, a line’s Line colour, an icon’s Icon colour, a text box’s Text colour and Highlight, on the quick bar and in the Format tab; a picture’s Border, in the Format tab; a style part’s Fill, Outline and Colour; each master text style’s Colour	A text box’s Font, on the quick bar and in the Format tab; each master text style’s Font
Reports	A block’s Text colour, Background colour and a picture’s Border colour; every colour of a chart’s or a table’s Format tab; the selected words’ colour and Highlight; the page’s Accent colour	A text or table block’s Font; a chart’s Format › Typography font; the selected words’ font
Dashboards	Every colour of a card’s Format tab; a chart’s Colour, a shape’s Fill colour and Outline colour, a heading’s Text colour and a divider’s Line colour, on the quick bar and in Card settings; a heading’s Background; a text card’s Colour of the selected words and Highlight; the page’s Background colour	A card’s Font; a text card’s Font of the selected words
Stories	The words’ Text colour and Highlight, a panel’s Panel colour, a table’s Cell colour and a picture’s Border colour	The story’s Headings and Text fonts, under Style
Brand kit	Primary colour, Secondary colour, Background colour, Text colour and each data colour	Heading font and Body font
Dashboard themes	In the theme manager and in a dashboard’s Customize…, a theme’s surface, text, chart detail, signal and series colours, each text class’s colour, and the Card background and Page background defaults; in the theme manager, the brand colour a theme is generated from	The Theme font and each text class’s font

The colour panel

What it lists

Each section shows only where it has colours, in this order:

The document’s own colours (In this deck, In this report, In this dashboard, In this story, In this brand kit, In this theme), so a second pick can match the first. A deck, a report, a dashboard and a story list theirs most used first.
The style’s colours, each by what it is for (Accent, Text, Data colour 3), with six shades from lighter to darker under them: those of the style colour nearest the colour in hand, or of the one you choose. Where the heading says follows a style switch (or follows the theme), a pick is kept as that style colour and changes with the style; elsewhere it is kept as the code it paints.
Recent colours: the last eight you picked, in any panel of any product (below).
Your brand kit’s colours (Brand kit · Acme).
Colours from pictures: From pictures in this deck, or, in the brand kit, From your logo.
Gradients, only where a field takes one.

The arrow keys move along a section’s swatches and Enter picks one. Each swatch says what it is when it is hovered or focused: its name, its colour in words, its code, how opaque it is when it is see-through, and its contrast where the colour sits on something known. Choosing a Text colour in a report printed on white, the style’s accent reads Accent: blue, #1D4ED8 · 6.7:1: the ratio is cut, never rounded up, to one decimal. A colour under the line there is hatched and called low contrast: 4.5:1 for text, 3:1 for shapes, lines, borders and chart colours. Where it may sit on several surfaces (a report’s text, on the page and on the paper its files print on), the lowest ratio counts. Contrast is a warning, never a block: a colour called low contrast is still set when you pick it.

Find a colour

Search colours or paste a hex code finds a colour by its name (Accent), by a word for it (blue, grey, teal) or by its code (#1D4ED8, or 1D4ED8 as brand guides write it). A code that isn’t listed, such as a lighter blue pasted from a slide (#60A5FA), is offered as Use #60A5FA, which Enter takes too; Esc clears the search. Pick a colour from the screen (the eyedropper beside the search) takes a colour from anywhere on your screen, where your browser offers it.

Custom colour

Custom colour, under the sections, is a picker for any colour. It is open from the start; close it and it stays closed, in every panel, until the page is loaded again. Under a colour lock there is none (below). It holds:

a field of saturation and brightness (with the keyboard, left and right change saturation, up and down brightness);
Hue, and Opacity where the field takes a see-through colour (a deck shape’s fill and outline, and a deck style part’s; a dashboard card’s background, header background and gridlines, a dashboard shape’s fill and outline, a divider and a page’s background; a report chart’s background, header background and gridlines, and a rule’s background; a theme’s colours and its background defaults);
the values as Hex, RGB or HSL, to read or type;
Pick a colour from the screen, or System colour picker… where the browser has no eyedropper;
the old colour beside the new one: choose the old one to put it back;
the contrast in words where the colour sits on something known. For text on a white page, the accent #1D4ED8 reads Contrast 6.7:1; dragged lighter to #60A5FA it reads Low contrast 2.5:1, under 4.5:1.

The colour shows as you drag. In a deck, a report, a dashboard or a story the whole drag is one step Undo takes back.

Recent colours

Every colour you pick or set (a swatch, a code, the eyedropper, a custom colour let go) joins the recent colours, which every product shares in this browser. The panel shows the last eight as Recent colours, newest first and each once, after the document’s and the style’s colours and before the brand kit. The row offers only what the field takes: a style colour where the panel lists the style’s colours (named and painted as this document’s style paints it), a code always, and a see-through colour only where the field takes one. The row stays as it was when the panel opened, so a pick never moves a swatch under the pointer; it joins the row the next time. There is no row until you have picked a colour, nor under a colour lock. A private window, or a browser that keeps no site data, starts the list again.

Under a brand lock

When your company locks its brand’s colours, the panel offers only the colours you may use (the style’s colours, which wear the brand, and the brand kit’s; a dashboard’s colours and a theme’s offer them as Allowed colours) and says why, such as Your company keeps reports to its brand’s colours. It has no Custom colour and no eyedropper, and a code typed in is taken only when it is listed (#60A5FA is not one of the colours you may use here.). A colour already in use that is off the brand is listed first, marked Not in the brand kit (Not the brand’s in a theme’s defaults), and can’t be picked again.

The font panel

Search fonts finds a family by its name, or by its kind (serif, mono); Clear search or Esc empties it. Under it, Kind of font narrows the list to Sans, Serif, Display, Handwriting or Mono (those the list has), or All.
The sections, in order: Brand fonts (your brand kit’s, each with its role), the document’s own (In this deck, In this report, In this dashboard, In this story, In this brand kit, In this theme), Recently used (shared by every product), Popular (six), then every family by kind (Sans serif, Serif, Display, Handwriting, Monospace), and On your computer.
Each name is drawn in its own face, as a small picture of the name rather than the whole font: only the rows in view fetch theirs, from DataSquares’ own files, and until a picture arrives the name waits as plain text. A family’s weights, unfolded under it, are drawn in the font itself, and your computer’s fonts in themselves.
Rest on a family for a moment and a report block, a deck’s text box or a story shows in it (Previewing); move away and it goes back. Nothing changes until you choose.
A font the list doesn’t have (one an older picker stored, or a theme file named) is listed as Custom (…).
Under the font lock the panel offers your brand kit’s fonts alone and says Your company keeps fonts to its brand kit.; a font in hand that isn’t the brand’s is listed as Not a brand font.

Weights and text styles

A deck’s panel lists the nineteen fonts decks are set in, which its files print, and none of your computer’s. In decks a font is a family at a weight: each family’s weights unfold under it, named as type designers name them (Lora: Regular, Medium, SemiBold and Bold), and a master text style’s font lists its italics too (Italic, Medium Italic). Choosing a family keeps the weight in hand, or takes the nearest the family has. A text box’s panel has two tabs, Fonts and Text styles: Text styles lists the deck master’s nine (Display, Title, Subtitle, Body, Caption, Eyebrow, Number, Label and Quote; a deck with no style offers Title, Subtitle and Body), each drawn in its font and weight and named with its font, weight and size, and choosing one sets the box in it whole. Under the font lock it lists only the styles set in the brand’s fonts. See A text box’s format.

In reports, dashboards, the brand kit and the theme manager a font field takes a family alone, so the panel lists no weights and no text styles there. The words selected in a report’s text block or a dashboard’s text card keep their six fonts: Geist, Georgia, Times New Roman, Courier New, Arial and Verdana. A story’s Headings and Text fonts list the faces its style’s font pairings give each, and their Text styles tab lists the pairings themselves (see Colours and fonts in stories).

Change all

In decks, reports, dashboards and stories, after a pick the panel’s foot says where else the document holds the colour (or, in decks, reports and dashboards, the font) you started from (#DC701C is in 2 more parts on 2 slides.) and offers to change it there too: This slide or All slides in a deck, This page or Everywhere in a report or a dashboard (This block or Whole report for a report chart’s or table’s Format colours), This section or Whole story in a story; a single Change all where every one is where you are. A deck and a story leave out the slides or sections others are editing or you can’t change now, and say so; a dashboard leaves locked cards alone. See Change all in decks, in reports, in dashboards and in stories.