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[00:00:00,210] Welcome; in this tutorial, I’ll show you how to use your own brand or business colors in Timeline Task Planner, also known as Gantt Chart Maker.

[00:00:11,470] First, make sure the app is installed and you have signed in with your account. To do this, visit the Purchase / Support tab and click the Subscribe button.

[00:00:23,040] You can subscribe to it from the Microsoft Store or Microsoft Marketplace, depending on where you installed the app from.

[00:00:30,920] We’re offering fully functional trial versions via these stores.

[00:00:36,800] Now let’s create a Gantt chart template using your own brand colors.

[00:00:42,260] Open your Documents folder, go to the UniformSoftware folder, then open Gantt Chart Maker, then template.

[00:00:56,090] Choose the template closest to what you want.

[00:01:04,400] Copy it and rename the new file—for example, "My Brand Colors.xlsx".

[00:01:19,370] Double-click to open the new file and go to the Gantt Chart ribbon tab.

[00:01:31,780] Click Template and select "My Brand Colors" to ensure this Gantt Chart sheet uses its own file as the template, meaning we are configuring it to reference itself.

[00:01:48,400] Now open the color palette of your business or brand; in this example, we will use this one.

[00:02:00,240] Right-click the row-heading cell of the top row.

[00:02:05,658] Choose Format Cells; this opens the Format Cells dialog box for the full top row.

[00:02:11,380] Visit the Fill tab, which is used for setting up the background of the cells.

[00:02:19,334] Copy the hex color code from your palette.

[00:02:23,360] Return to Excel; on the Fill tab of the Format Cells dialog box, click More Colors.

[00:02:28,863] Go to the Custom tab and then paste in your hex color code.

[00:02:37,117] Click OK to close the Colors page, then activate the Border tab of the Format Cells dialog box.

[00:02:45,755] Copy the border color code hex string from your palette.

[00:02:48,570] Return to Excel; on the Border page of the Format Cells dialog box, expand the Colors drop-down list and choose More Colors.

[00:02:56,293] Again, paste your color code into the hex box and then click OK.

[00:02:59,211] Click the borders you want to show in this color.

[00:03:05,041] Now go to the Font tab of the Format Cells dialog box.

[00:03:10,367] Copy the color code in hex string from your palette and return to the Font tab.

[00:03:19,070] Click the Color box, click More Colors, and paste in your color code.

[00:03:31,120] Click OK to close the Format Cells dialog box.

[00:03:36,464] This finishes the formatting of the top line. Now we do the same formatting for the heading line of the task list.

[00:03:44,296] First, make sure the last column of the task list heading is visible.

[00:03:49,042] To do this, click the Task List Columns button on the ribbon, check the box next to % Complete, and close the window.

[00:04:01,446] Drag your mouse to select all the heading cells and right-click one of them.

[00:04:09,720] Choose Format Cells; the procedure is the same as setting the top line colors.

[00:04:13,270] You simply copy a color from your brand color palette and then paste it into the appropriate field on the Format Cells dialog box.

[00:04:42,990] Now let’s set up the timeline. You have to set only one color: the background color of the top-left cell.

[00:04:52,270] All the other colors are generated automatically by making the background color brighter and darker.

[00:04:59,500] In this example, we’ll use Excel’s Format Painter.

[00:05:05,260] Click and select any single cell (not the merged ones) on the top line.

[00:05:10,904] Go to Excel’s Home tab and click Format Painter.

[00:05:14,750] Click the top-left cell in the timeline section.

[00:05:23,010] Now save the template. Go to the Gantt Chart Maker ribbon tab.

[00:05:26,950] Click Template and then "My Brand Colors"; this updates the current sheet using the template itself.

[00:05:36,010] As you can see, the whole timeline is refreshed.

[00:05:41,520] Now let’s format the shapes used to draw diagrams. Activate the Shapes worksheet.

[00:05:47,680] This sheet defines all the shapes the app uses for creating the Gantt chart.

[00:05:53,189] First, let’s change the connector colors. Click to select a connector.

[00:05:59,990] Excel shows the Shape Format ribbon tab. Click the Shape Effects drop-down button in the Shape Styles group.

[00:06:11,150] This opens the Format Shape task pane. On the first tab, you can set the Fill and Line colors of the connector.

[00:06:19,334] Again, let’s copy and paste in your brand colors. Do this for the other connectors too.

[00:06:36,850] Now click and select the first shape on the Child Task column.

[00:06:42,970] Again, we copy and paste one of the brand colors to these four gradient stops.

[00:06:53,110] If the brand color is a darker color, you will need to set transparency to show the foreground text, which is usually black.

[00:07:03,280] In this case, we set the transparency of these four stops so that the background is brighter.

[00:07:14,110] Now save the Excel file; this makes sure all your changes are saved to the template.

[00:07:19,860] Now return to the timeline sheet and activate the Gantt Chart ribbon tab.

[00:07:29,420] Pull down the Refresh menu and click Advanced Refresh; the whole chart is redrawn.

[00:07:37,270] As you can see, it now uses the brand colors.

[00:07:45,930] Let’s define relationships to see how the connectors work.

[00:07:58,070] The connectors are drawn using the brand colors too.

[00:08:06,110] Let’s see how to use this new template: close all Excel files and create a new one.

[00:08:11,210] Go to the UniformSoftware ribbon tab, click Add New Gantt Chart, and then choose the template that uses your brand colors.

[00:08:22,381] That’s it! You have successfully created a template that uses your own brand colors.