Wondering how to get those nice colors or tiles into your own objects? Tired of hacking into the .Key file to get them out? Follow these steps for an easy way to use the chart colors in your own projects. Missed the instructions Apple put on the FIRST PAGE of the Chart Colors document (I did!).

Note: These instructions only work if you have Keynote 1 installed.

I am assuming you already have your own presentation file open, with an object ready to get a color treatment.

Step 1.
Choose Open Image Library from the File menu.

Step 2.
A finder window should pop open with all your clip art .key files in it. Double Click the Chart Colors .key file

Step 3.
The second slide contains ALL the colors for all 12 Apple supplied Themes. Find the series of colors you want and select all of them by clicking and dragging your cursor around the whole bunch. You can also select them all by holding the Shift key down while you click each one.

Step 4.
COPY the colors by using Command-C or File:Copy

Step 5.
PASTE the colors onto a slide your presentation by using Command-V or File:Paste. I put them down in the corner of my slide while I am working, sort of like color swatches.

Step 6:
Click on the square of color you want to use and choose Copy Style from the Format menu

Step 7.
Click on the object you want to color and choose Paste Style from the Format menu.

Step 8.
You may need to adjust the stroke and shadow, but your object should now be filled with the new color.