How to set the background color for Excel Chart in C#?

4 Nov 20253 minutes to read

You can set the background color of a chart by customizing either the plot area or the chart area. XlsIO allows you to set the background color for both the PlotArea and ChartArea using the ForeColor property of the IFill interface.

The following code example illustrates how to set the background color for Excel Chart in C# (cross-platform and Windows-specific) and VB.NET.

C# [Cross-platform]

using (ExcelEngine excelEngine = new ExcelEngine())
{
    IApplication application = excelEngine.Excel;
    application.DefaultVersion = ExcelVersion.Xlsx;
    IWorkbook workbook = application.Workbooks.Open(Path.GetFullPath(@"Data/InputTemplate.xlsx"));
    IWorksheet worksheet = workbook.Worksheets[0];

    //Get the first chart in the worksheet
    IChartShape chart = worksheet.Charts[0];

    //Applying background color for plot area
    chart.PlotArea.Fill.ForeColor = Color.LightYellow;

    //Applying background color for chart area
    chart.ChartArea.Fill.ForeColor = Color.LightGreen;

    #region Save
    //Saving the workbook
    workbook.SaveAs(Path.GetFullPath("Output/Output.xlsx"));
    #endregion
}

C# [Windows-specific]

using (ExcelEngine excelEngine = new ExcelEngine())
{
    IApplication application = excelEngine.Excel;
    application.DefaultVersion = ExcelVersion.Xlsx;
    IWorkbook workbook = application.Workbooks.Open("InputTemplate.xlsx");
    IWorksheet worksheet = workbook.Worksheets[0];

    //Get the first chart in the worksheet
    IChartShape chart = worksheet.Charts[0];

    //Applying background color for plot area
    chart.PlotArea.Fill.ForeColor = Color.LightYellow;

    //Applying background color for chart area
    chart.ChartArea.Fill.ForeColor = Color.LightGreen;

    //Saving the workbook
    workbook.SaveAs("Output.xlsx");
}

VB.NET [Windows-specific]

Using excelEngine As ExcelEngine = New ExcelEngine()
    Dim application As IApplication = excelEngine.Excel
    application.DefaultVersion = ExcelVersion.Xlsx
    Dim workbook As IWorkbook = application.Workbooks.Open("InputTemplate.xlsx")
    Dim worksheet As IWorksheet = workbook.Worksheets(0)

    'Get the first chart in the worksheet
    Dim chart As IChartShape = worksheet.Charts(0)

    'Applying background color for plot area
    chart.PlotArea.Fill.ForeColor = Color.Yellow

    'Applying background color for chart area
    chart.ChartArea.Fill.ForeColor = Color.LightGreen

    'Save the workbook
    workbook.SaveAs("Output.xlsx")
End Using

A complete working example to set the background color for Excel Chart using C# is present on this GitHub page.