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Excel 2007 and later
Newer versions of Excel support over 4 million colors. Setting up this wealth is very easy – go to the tab Page Layout – Colors (Page Layout — Colors) and choose any palette that pleases you:
The colors are carefully selected in harmonious combinations, the effect of the application is already visible when you hover the mouse. The selected palette will be applied to all objects (sheets, cells, charts, etc.) within the book. For maniacs design masters at the end of the list there is an option Create New Theme Colors (New Theme Colors), where you can try to cut out your palette (for example, with the company’s corporate colors):
Excel 2003 and older
Older versions of Excel had a very limited palette of only 56 colors. This number cannot be increased, but you can replace the standard colors in this palette with your own, non-standard ones. To do this, go to the menu Service – Options – tab Color (Tools — Options — Color) and change any selected color of the standard palette to your own with the button Change (Edit):
With some patience, you can achieve, for example, the following result:
On the same tab Color you can copy colors from another book (it must be opened beforehand) using the drop-down list at the bottom of the window. For example, you can download this book with non-standard palette colors and use them for your tables.
Sometimes the colors of the standard palette go astray (for example, after unloading from 1C to Excel). Button Reset (Reset) will help you.
I have a new Excel 2007-2010, but I want the same colors as in the old Excel 2000-2003
Hard case. But it happens. I came across this, I remember, when I was doing a project for a client who is still working on Excel 2003. The beautiful palette of Excel 2010 turned into an incomprehensible color mess in his files: green could become yellow, and red could become orange. Apparently, when saving in the Excel 97-2003 format, the conversion from 4 million colors to 65 did not pass without a trace.
There was a solution – a free Classic Excel Colors add-on by Andrew Engwirda, Excel MVP. The add-in adds a button to your ribbon that opens a window with “the very old good” colors from the Excel 2003 palette. If you use them, then there will be no color distortion when working with new files in older versions:
Thanks a lot, Andrew! You save my ass life 🙂
- Zebra striped table rows