# Format a chart

> Use the Format pane in Analyze to style a chart: axes and ticks, per-measure colors, mark types and a second axis, gradient and pattern fills, mark shapes, bar shapes and outlines, data labels, donut center text, chart-type-specific options, the tooltip, the legend, and multi-level sorting.

Analyze · 7 min read · Updated 2026-10-31

The Format pane sits on the right of the chart in Analyze. It holds every styling control for the chart you are looking at, grouped into collapsible sections: Title, X Axis, Y Axis, Color, Sorting, Legend, Tooltip, Chart Options, and a few that only appear for certain chart types. Sections that don't apply to the current chart type are hidden.

> **Tip:** The search box at the top of the pane reads "Search bar chart settings…" (with the name of your chart type). Type a word like "tick", "gradient" or "legend" and the pane opens only the sections that match, so you don't have to hunt.

> **Note:** Number formats, currency and units have their own article, as do reference lines and bands. This one covers everything else.

## Set up the axes

The X Axis and Y Axis sections each start with a switch to show or hide the axis. Below it, the Axis Header block styles that axis only: type a header (leave it on Auto to use the field name), then set its size, font, bold, italic and color. The X and Y axes are styled independently, so a bold X header doesn't change the Y axis.

- Rotation - on a category X axis, choose Auto, 0°, 45° or 90° for the tick labels.
- Wrap long labels - on the Y axis, lets long category names wrap instead of being cut off.
- Axis Range - on a numeric axis, set a minimum and maximum, or leave them on Auto. Include Zero keeps zero in view.
- Grid - Show Grid turns the gridlines on or off.

## Control the ticks

On a numeric axis, the Ticks group sets how many labels the axis draws. Tick Count offers Auto, 3, 5, 7 or 10 ticks, or None to hide them. Tick Interval sets an exact step between ticks instead, such as every 50. When you set an interval it overrides the tick count, and the pane says so under the field.

The Advanced button next to Axis Range opens the axis settings panel. It adds Logarithmic (best for wide value ranges) and Reverse Axis, which flips the min and max direction, plus Reset to Defaults.

## Choose how a date axis spaces its values

When a date field sits on the category axis, the X Axis section shows an Axis Type toggle with two choices.

- Temporal - places each value on a real time scale, so a missing month shows up as a gap in the right place.
- Categorical - gives every value an evenly spaced slot, one after the other, regardless of how far apart the dates are.

Which one a new chart starts on comes from the date column itself. A column carries a "Treat dates as categories, not a timeline" setting - in the Fields pane menu and the Prepare column menus - that sets the default for every chart built on it, and each chart can still switch with the toggle. A chart drawn as Categorical also drops its forecast and the marker for an unfinished latest period, since both of those need a real time scale.

Line charts are always temporal, so they don't show the toggle. For a temporal line or area chart, Chart Options adds Gap Style, which decides how a missing period is drawn: Interpolate bridges it with a faded dashed segment, and Break leaves the line broken across it.

## Resize the axis label area

Hover the boundary between the axis labels and the plot and a thin line appears. Drag it to make the label area wider or narrower, which helps when long category names are truncated. Double-click the boundary to fit the labels, and the axis keeps re-fitting as your data changes. This works on both the Y axis (width) and the X axis (height).

## Style several measures and add a second axis

On a bar, line, area or horizontal bar chart with more than one measure, the Y Axis section shows a Multi-measure settings group (the same controls also appear in the Y-Axis Settings panel, opened from the Advanced button). It starts with a Measure layout choice:

- One chart - draws every measure together on one axis.
- Dual axis - gives the chart a second axis. An L / R switch beside each measure sends it to the left or right axis (B / T, bottom or top, on a horizontal bar), and each axis scales to its own measure. Turn on Sync axis scales to give both axes the same range.
- Small multiples - draws each measure in its own panel, each panel scaled on its own axis.
- Paired - draws up to six measure panes beside one shared category axis. Each pane can have its own mark, field to draw over, color, and number format. See Build a paired chart for the steps.

Below the layout choice, each measure has a color swatch and a chart type picker that draws it as a Bar, Line or Area, so you can put a line over bars in one chart. A plain area chart drawn as One chart also shows a Stack areas switch: it is on by default, stacking the areas into a running total, and turning it off draws every area from zero.

## Change colors and fills

The Color section starts with the palette. With no field on Color, pick a color template and a single color for the marks; with a dimension on Color, use Color Template and assign a color to each value. On a bar or line chart with two or more measures, Measure Colors lists one swatch per measure.

Two decorative fills sit further down the section. A mark can only have one fill at a time, so turning on one grays out the other until you turn it off.

- Gradient fill - fades each mark toward another color. Set Fade amount and Fade to color; on area, stacked area, scatter and treemap charts you can also pick a Direction of Vertical, Horizontal or Diagonal. Once it is on, a switch beside each series lets you choose which ones get the gradient. Available on bar, horizontal bar, area, stacked area, scatter, treemap and Pareto charts.
- Pattern fill - adds a texture to the marks. Choose Pinstripe, Diagonal, Crosshatch or Waves, or One per series to give each color a different texture. Texture Color, Scale and Texture Opacity fine-tune it. Available on bar and stacked bar charts (vertical and horizontal), pie, donut and range bar charts, and hidden when a measure drives the color.

> **Tip:** Pattern fill is useful when a chart has to read in black and white, or for readers who have trouble telling colors apart.

## Change mark shapes and outlines

Charts that draw points - line and area, scatter, lollipop and range bar - offer a shape picker in Chart Options, labeled Dot Shape or Point Shape. The shapes are Circle, Square, Diamond, Triangle, Pentagon, Star, Plus and Cross (X). The button beside it flips the shape vertically, so a triangle can point down; it is disabled for shapes that look the same either way.

Bar-style charts (bars, stacked bars, diverging, range, lollipop, gantt, waterfall and histogram) have a Bar Outline color in Chart Options. Picking a color adds a border to every bar, and then Outline Width, Outline Dash (Solid, Dashed or Dotted) and Outline Opacity appear. Choose none, or Reset, to remove it. Area charts set their outline with Outline Color in the Color section.

The vertical and horizontal bar charts - including stacked and 100% stacked bars - and diverging bars also have a Bar shape picker in Chart Options. It shapes the end of every bar: Default leaves it to the board's styling, Square is sharp-cornered, Rounded softens the corners (and keeps the corner-radius control), Pill rounds the end fully, Pipe gives it a rounded, tube-like cap, and Pointed tapers it to a point. You can ask the chat for a shape too, for example "make the bars rounded" or "pill bars", and "default" bars put it back.

## Show data labels

At the top of Chart Options, the Data Labels switch prints each mark's value right on the chart. It is off by default on most charts and already on for Sankey diagrams, treemaps and diverging bars. KPI, Gantt and funnel charts set their numbers elsewhere, so the switch doesn't appear on them; filled maps and choropleths use it to label their regions instead.

On bar, line and area charts, Label Points decides how many labels to draw: All labels every point, or pick any of Min, Max and Med to call out just the smallest, largest or median value.

- Alignment - on bar-style charts and scatter plots, nudge the labels with the horizontal buttons (left, center, right) and the vertical ones (top, middle, bottom).
- Style - set the label text size (8 to 24), font, and bold or italic. Leave Auto (contrast) on to let Golden pick a color that reads against each mark, or turn it off to choose your own.

On a stacked bar chart, a Stacked Labels group turns on three label kinds: Show Value labels each segment with its value, Show Percentage with its share of the bar, and Show Total adds one label for the whole bar at the end of each stack. Show Total is unavailable on 100% stacked charts, where every bar already totals 100%.

Line charts add a few of their own. Start Labels and End Labels print a label at the start or end of each line - its field name or its value. Color by net change tints each line by whether it ended higher or lower than it began, and on a line with exactly two points along the axis (a slope chart), Label both ends writes the value at each end.

## Put live numbers in the middle of a donut

1. Build a donut chart and open Chart Options in the Format pane.
2. Under Pie/Donut Options, make sure Show Center Text is on.
3. Set Center Display to Total Value, Custom Label, or Custom Label & Value.
4. For a custom label, type into Label Text (and Value Text, for the label and value option). Insert tokens to show live values.

The tokens you can insert, each worked out from the slices actually drawn:

- `{total}` - the total of all slices
- `{count}` - how many slices are drawn
- `{measure}` - the measure's name
- `{dimension}` - the dimension's name
- `{max}` / `{min}` / `{avg}` - the largest, smallest, and average slice value
- `{topName}` / `{topValue}` - the name and value of the biggest slice

Tokens are worked out from the slices actually drawn, so they follow your filters. The pane lists the available tokens under each input.

## Options for a specific chart type

A few chart types add their own group to Chart Options, shown only while that type is on screen.

- Radial Options - a Style picker switches a radial chart between Radar, Radial bar, Stellar, Radial lollipop and Sunburst. The toggles below it - Fill Area, Normalize Axes and Show Gridlines - change to match the style you pick.
- Pareto Options - shown on a Pareto chart. A Target slider sets where the target line sits and how many of the top bars count toward it, and a color control sets the cumulative-share line's color. The ranked bars, the running-share line and the 0-100% right axis come with the chart type.
- Box Plot Options - the Display picker switches between Box plot and Strip plot. A strip plot draws every value as a dot instead of the box, the group's name becomes Strip Plot Options, and it adds a Median tick switch in place of the box-only controls.

## Choose what the tooltip shows

The Tooltip section controls the card that appears when you hover a mark. Show Tooltips turns it on or off, and Configuration Mode decides how much you set by hand: Auto (smart defaults) lets Golden choose which fields to show, and Custom configuration hands the choice to you.

In Custom configuration, add fields to the tooltip with + Add field - a searchable list of the dataset's fields. A field that sits below the chart's level of detail is listed but greyed out, with the reason it can't be shown, so you don't add one the chart would only drop. You can remove or reorder the fields you added, and this is the same set the Tooltip shelf below the chart holds.

- Show Field Labels - show or hide each field's name beside its value.
- Section Dividers - draw a rule between groups of fields.
- Compact Mode - tighten the tooltip's spacing.
- Font Size - set the tooltip text size.
- Null Value Text - what to show for a missing value, for example "N/A".
- Click to Pin - keep the tooltip open when you click a mark; a pinned card can add Show Drill Options and Show Copy Button.

## Show or move the legend

The Legend section has a Show Legend switch and a Position choice of Top, Bottom, Left or Right. It only appears when the chart has something for a legend to explain, such as a field on Color or several measures.

## Sort by more than one field

The Sorting section lists the fields on the chart's shelves. Each row has two direction buttons: A → Z and Z → A for a category, Lowest first and Highest first for a measure or a color field.

1. Click a direction on the first field you want to sort by.
2. Click a direction on a second field. It joins the sort as the next level instead of replacing the first, and each sorted row shows its level number.
3. Use Move up and Move down to change which field takes priority, or Remove from sort to drop one. Clicking a field's active direction again also removes it.

When the section is collapsed, its header shows the sort in use, or the number of levels when there is more than one.

### Related

- [Format numbers, currency, and units](https://goldenanalytics.com/docs/number-and-currency-formatting)
- [Add reference lines and bands](https://goldenanalytics.com/docs/reference-lines-and-bands)
- [Build a chart with shelves](https://goldenanalytics.com/docs/chart-builder)
- [Chart types in Golden](https://goldenanalytics.com/docs/chart-types)
- [Style a dashboard with themes](https://goldenanalytics.com/docs/dashboard-themes-and-styling)

Source: https://goldenanalytics.com/docs/format-a-chart