Choose colors in Prism Windows

These instructions apply to Prism 4 and later (Windows). Another page explains how to choose colors on the Mac.

Within Prism, there are color drop downs on many dialogs (Format Graph, Format Axis...) and on some right-click shortcut menus. Choose a color shown and you are done. Or click the bottom choice, More Colors. for more choices.  This brings up the custom color dialog, which is part of Windows and was not created by GraphPad. 

To define and save a custom color, follow these steps:

1. Make sure that "Use these custom colors in new projects" is checked.
2. Check on one of the 16 custom color boxes in the bottom left of the dialog, an empty one if there is one empty.
3. Choose a color by clicking on the large box of colors at the upper right, or by entering RGB (or HSL) values. (See the note below about the intensity slider.)
4. Click the button Add to Custom Colors. The color will appear in one of the 16 custom color boxes at the lower left, and wil stay there.

A few notes about this dialog:

• Choose a color shown on the left half of the dialog and you are done. 
• The checkbox "Use these custom colors in new projects" only applies to custom colors you choose after you checked that option. It won't apply to colors you chose before checking the option. 
• When choosing a color by pointing at it on the right half of the dialog, note that there are two choices. The big box shows lots of different colors. The smaller vertical slider to the right (the upper right of the dialog) is where you choose the shade of the color, basically how much black is added.  This will default with the slider all the way down to maximum blackness. In this position, all the colors look black! You'll need to move that slider up. 
• With Windows, it is not possible to choose a color by entering CMYK values. But all colors can also be encoded as RGB.
• If the color picker is too narrow (incomplete) see this page for an explanation and fix.
• If you want to create a custom color by entering RGB (or HSL) values, you need to add a first step: click on a basic color. You'll see the RGB values of that color. Change them to enter your RGB values. Finally click "Add to Custom Colors". If you don't do that first step, you won't be successful at creating a new custom color. 
• The RGB (Red, Green, Blue) scheme is quite standard.
• The HSL (Hue, Saturation, Luminosity) scheme is not quite as standard. There are several scales of HSL color model - basic HSL, winHSL240, winHSL255, pHSL. The Windows Color dialog uses Microsoft’s winHSL240 scale for HSL values.  
• Prism Mac lets you enter HSB (Hue, Saturation, and Brightness) instead of HSL in the standard Mac Color Palette. Unlike HSL, with alternative encodings, there is only one scale of HSB color model. More.