OnePager 7.0 and later lets you set different background colors for both swimlane stripes and for swimlane cells. A swimlane stripe extends across the entire chart from left to right, whereas a swimlane cell only pertains to the cell that contains text on the left-hand side of the chart:
Swimlane Stripes
To adjust your swimlane stripes, go to Home > Chart Properties > Main. In the Chart Background section, click the dropdown and select one of the options for Swimlane Stripes. Note that a chart can only have one set of swimlane stripes, so if you have multiple swimlane levels, you'll need to tell OnePager which level of swimlanes should drive your swimlane stripes. We usually recommend setting this to the right-most level, so if you have three sets of swimlanes turned on, choose Left #3 Swimlane Stripes:
Changing Swimlane Cell Stripes Manually
Beginning in OnePager 7.0, users can customize swimlane stripes beyond the standard alternating A/B color that is defined in Chart Properties. Keep in mind that swimlane stripes that are set up in Chart Properties can be templatized, while manual swimlane stripes cannot.
To paint a swimlane stripe manually, left-click ONCE on the swimlane cell. Notice that the entire swimlane is selected, not just the cell:
If you were to click a second time, the swimlane cell would be selected instead, but in this case, we want to select the swimlane itself.
With the swimlane selected, use the paint bucket to add a swimlane stripe of any color:
If you prefer right-clicking, right-click in the body of the swimlane where you would like the swimlane to appear. When the context menu appears, choose Properties... and then go to the Swimlane tab. This tab controls the formatting of your swimlanes, as opposed to your swimlane cells:
If you have multiple swimlane levels, make sure that you are editing the properties of the correct level. Otherwise, you could end up with a swimlane stripe that is too tall or too short. Once you've confirmed this, change the background color of the swimlane and click OK.
Swimlane Cells
In OnePager 7.0 and later, you can define the default background color of swimlane cells, either as a single color or in an alternating pattern. By default, your swimlane cells will take on the colors of your swimlane stripes, so you only really need to change your swimlane cell colors when you want the cells to be a different color than the stripes.
To change swimlane cell colors, go to Home > Chart Properties > Rows/Swimlanes. Each swimlane level can have a different background color for its cells, so make sure that you have selected the correct level (1, 2, or 3), and then click Swimlane Formatting:
In this example, we are setting the background color of the cells for the Left #2 swimlanes to an alternating pattern of two shades of green. If you want all swimlanes to have the same cell background color, set both backgrounds to the same color.
Any swimlane cell background colors set this way through Chart Properties can be templatized for use in other OnePager charts.
Changing Swimlane Cell Backgrounds Manually
If you need more than two colors for a given swimlane level, or just want one particular swimlane to stand out, you can still change your swimlane cell backgrounds manually. These manual changes cannot be templatized, but they will be saved in the chart where you made the changes.
To change the background color of a swimlane cell, click once in the swimlane cell, wait a second, and then click again. This will select just the swimlane cell, as opposed to the swimlane itself:
Once selected, use the paint bucket on the Home tab to change the background color of the selected swimlane cell.
If you prefer, you can also right-click on any swimlane cell instead of slow-left-clicking. When you right-click on a swimlane cell, choose Properties... from the context menu, and then click on the Cell tab. From here, you can change the background color for the selected swimlane cell, among other things:
See Also
Chart Backgrounds
Row and Text Column Cell Backgrounds
Last Updated: August 11, 2020