Using Custom Fill Patterns from a List

A reader asked how to fill a shape with a custom fill pattern from a fixed list in of a shape. They had no trouble with the first 25 standard fill patterns, but couldn’t figure out how to apply a custom pattern. So, I shall try to explain how this can be done …

This is an ordered list of the first 25 fill patterns have a tooltip (in English) that can be applied with the Format Shape panel:

• Transparent
• Solid
• Dark upward diagonal
• Large grid
• Large outlined diamond
• Dark downward diagonal
• Dark horizontal
• Dark vertical
• Light 20%
• Light 30%
• Dark 30%
• Dark 20%
• Dark 10%
• Dark wide horizontal
• Dark wide vertical
• Light downward diagonal
• Light upward diagonal
• Checkerboard
• Trellis
• Dark narrow horizontal
• Dark narrow vertical
• Dark narrow downward diagonal
• Dark narrow upward diagonal
• Small grid
• Small outlined diamond

I created a couple of custom fill patterns, Custom Circles and Custom Diamonds to the document, and added their names to a semi-colon list containing the standard fill patterns. This was entered into the format cell of a fixed-list Shape Data row called Fill.

="Transparent;Solid;Dark upward diagonal;Large grid;Large outlined diamond;Dark downward diagonal;Dark horizontal;Dark vertical;Light 20%;Light 30%;Dark 30%;Dark 20%;Dark 10%;Dark wide horizontal;Dark wide vertical;Light downward diagonal;Light upward diagonal;Checkerboard;Trellis;Dark narrow horizontal;Dark narrow vertical;Dark narrow downward diagonal;Dark narrow upward diagonal;Small grid;Small outlined diamond;Custom Circles;Custom Diamonds" 

Then I created a User.FillIdx row with the formula:

=LOOKUP(Prop.Fill,Prop.Fill.Format)

This will get the index number of the selected fill pattern from the list. This index number is all that is required for the value in the FillPattern cell for the standard fill patterns, but the custom patterns need to be specified by name with the USE(…) function. So, the following formula will use the numeric index value for the standard fill patterns, but the name of the custom fill patterns:

=GUARD(IF(User.FillIdx<25,User.FillIdx,USE(Prop.Fill)))

This is how the relationship is setup in the ShapeSheet between the FillPattern, Prop.FIll and User.Fill rows:

This video shows the above in action:

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