A chart palette is a predefined set of colors that can be used while drawing one or more series. There are two types of palettes used with the chart: one palette for the root chart object, and one palette for each series.

How is a Chart Series Colored?

If no colors are specified for both the data point and its associated series, the Chart control assigns colors to a data point. The control uses colors from the associated series' palette (set by the Series.Palette property) if one is specified, otherwise it uses the first available color from the control's palette (set by the Chart.Palette property). By default, the control retrieves colors sequentially from a palette.

How to Use Custom Palettes

A custom palette enables you to define your own set of colors to be used when drawing series or data points. If you define color values for the Chart.PaletteCustomColors property and set the Chart.Palette property to ChartColorPalette.None, the Chart uses the values in Chart.PaletteCustomColors to color series or data points.

Most pre-defined palettes in the Chart control contain more than 16 colors. When defining a custom palette, you should consider how many series or data points your chart will display and add the appropriate number of colors. If there are more series or data points than custom palette colors in your chart, the control displays some colors in the palette more than once.