Customize Chart Colors & Candle Styles in Tradovate
A default Tradovate chart is fine until you're staring at it for six hours straight. Here's how to change your candle style, recolor the candles and background, and save the look as a named color scheme.
A default Tradovate chart is fine until you're staring at it for six hours straight. The right colors cut eye strain, make direction obvious at a glance, and stop you from misreading a red candle as green during a fast move. Here's how to change your candle style, recolor the candles and background, and save the whole look as a named color scheme you can reuse.
What You Can Actually Change
Three separate things, and it helps to know which control does which:
- Chart style, the shape of the bars themselves (candlestick, bar, line, and so on).
- Element colors, candle bodies, borders, wicks, and your Buy/Sell/Profit/Loss order lines.
- Color scheme, the background plus a saved, named theme you can flip between and tie to Light or Dark mode.
Customize Your Tradovate Chart: Step by Step
Choose Your Chart Style
Charts open as candlesticks by default. To switch, hover your cursor over the Chart module and click the Chart Style button that appears near the top. Tradovate ships eight built-in styles, so you'll find the usual options here: candlestick, bar, line, area, and Heikin Ashi among them. Pick whichever matches how you read price. Candlesticks stay the most popular for a reason, but a clean line chart is hard to beat for spotting the broader trend.
Open the Chart's Color Settings
Hover over the chart and click the gear icon, labeled Configure Chart Elements. In the Elements tab, click the futures symbol you're charting. That opens the Chart Editor pop-up, where every color picker lives. Label wording shifts a little between platform builds, so if you don't see "Configure Chart Elements" by name, look for the gear or settings icon on the chart itself.
Recolor Candle Bodies, Borders, and Wicks
Inside the Chart Editor you can set colors independently for the candle bodies, borders, and wicks, with a separate pair for up candles and down candles. Keep the up/down contrast strong. If your green and red are too close in brightness, they blur together on a busy one-minute chart. Set your colors, then save your changes.
Set the Background and Name a Color Scheme
The background lives in its own place. Open the chart Settings menu and choose Color Scheme. From there you can copy an existing scheme as a starting point, give it a name, and edit the background along with the other chart elements. You can build more than one scheme and assign them to Light Mode or Dark Mode, so the chart follows whatever theme your platform is set to. Dark background with a bright candle pair is the classic low-strain setup for long sessions.
Color Your Order Lines and Save to a Template
Back in the Chart Editor, set the colors for your Buy, Sell, Profit, and Loss lines. These are the levels that show up when you trade from the chart, so pick colors that stand apart from the candles. The important part: color schemes are saved with your Chart Template. Save the template once you're happy, and the look carries across sessions and onto any new chart you apply the template to. Skip this save and your tweaks can reset the next time you log in.
A Few Things Worth Knowing
- Schemes are per chart. A color scheme applies on a chart-by-chart basis, so set it once, save it to a template, and reuse that template instead of recoloring every window.
- Light and Dark can differ. You can point a bright scheme at Light Mode and a dark one at Dark Mode, and Tradovate swaps automatically with the platform theme.
- Labels move around. Tradovate updates its interface over time. If a menu name here doesn't match your screen, hunt for the equivalent gear, Settings, or Color Scheme control before assuming it's gone.
Automate the Trading, Keep Your Clean Charts
Once your charts read the way you like, the last thing you want is to be glued to them placing every order by hand. PickMyTrade routes your TradingView alerts straight into your Tradovate account, so entries and exits fire automatically while you keep watching the chart you just dialed in.
Automate Your Tradovate Trades
Once your charts read the way you like, let PickMyTrade route your TradingView alerts straight into your Tradovate account, so entries and exits fire automatically.
Start Your Free 5-Day TrialFrequently Asked Questions
Yes. Open the Configure Chart Elements gear, click your instrument to open the Chart Editor, and set separate colors for the candle bodies, borders, and wicks on both up and down candles, then save.
The background sits in the Color Scheme settings, not the candle editor. Open the chart Settings menu, choose Color Scheme, copy or create a scheme, and edit the background there.
They will if you save them to a Chart Template. Color schemes are stored with the template, so save the template after you finish and your colors persist across sessions and new charts.
This guide is for educational and informational purposes only and is not financial, investment, or trading advice. Trading futures and other leveraged products carries a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for every investor. PickMyTrade is an independent third-party automation platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Tradovate, Inc. "Tradovate" and all related names, logos, and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Platform features and steps change over time, so always confirm the current process in the official Tradovate platform and documentation before acting.