Chapter 6: Worksheet Formatting
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Using Colors and Shading .................................................................................................
Excel provides the tools to create some very colorful worksheets. You can change the color of the
text or add colors to the backgrounds of the worksheet cells.Note
Prior to Excel 2007, workbooks were limited to a palette of 56 colors. Excel 2010 allows a virtually unlimited
number of colors. n
You control the color of the cell’s text by choosing Home ➪ Font ➪ Font Color. Control the cell’s
background color by choosing Home ➪ Font ➪ Fill Color. Both of these color controls are also
available on the Mini toolbar, which appears when you right-click a cell or range.Tip
To hide the contents of a cell, make the background color the same as the font text color. The cell contents are
still visible in the Formula bar when you select the cell. Keep in mind, however, that some printers may over-
ride this setting, and the text may be visible when printed. n
Even though you have access to an unlimited number of colors, you might want to stick with the
ten theme colors (and their light/dark variations) displayed in the various color selection controls.
In other words, avoid using the More Color option, which lets you select a color. Why? First of all,
those ten colors were chosen because they “go together” (well, at least somebody thought they did).
Another reason involves document themes. If you switch to a different document theme for your
workbook, nontheme colors aren’t changed. In some cases, the result may be less than pleasing,
aesthetically. See “Understanding Document Themes,” later in this chapter, for more information
about themes.In Chapter 5, I discuss the handy Table feature. One advantage to using tables is that it’s very easy to
apply table styles. You can change the look of your table with a single mouse click.It’s important to understand how table styles work with existing formatting. A simple rule is that apply-
ing a style to a table doesn’t override existing formatting. For example, assume that you have a range of
data that uses yellow as the background color for the cells. When you convert that range to a table (by
choosing Insert ➪ Tables ➪ Table), the default table style (alternating row colors) isn’t visible. Rather,
the table will display the previously applied yellow background.To make table styles visible with this table, you need to remove the manually applied background cell
colors. Select the entire table and then choose Home ➪ Font ➪ Fill Color ➪ No Fill.You can apply any type of formatting to a table, and that formatting will override the table style format-
ting. For example, you may want to make a particular cell stand out by using a different fill color.Using Colors with Table Styles