Show cells with formulas without permanently changing the cells

[Guest]

I want to create an On/Off button that will temporarily show which cells
contain formulas.

If someone knows a better way pls say so.

I thought of adding and then subtracting a fixed number from the
Interior.color property but I don't know how to retrieve the current value.

rngFormulas.Select
If flag = False Then
With Selection.Interior
.ColorIndex = ????? + 300000
End With
flag = True
Else
With Selection.Interior
.ColorIndex = ????? - 300000
End With
flag = False
End If

 

[Peter T]

This doesn't incorporate your flag so adjust if you need that.

Select either a single cell to get formulas in whole sheet or a selection of
cells.

Sub ToggleFormulaColour()
Dim rng As Range, vFntClrIdx

On Error Resume Next
Set rng = Selection.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeFormulas, 23)
On Error GoTo errH
If rng Is Nothing Then
MsgBox "No Formulas"
Else

vFntClrIdx = rng.Font.ColorIndex
If IsNull(vFntClrIdx) Then vFntClrIdx = -1

If vFntClrIdx > 0 Then
vFntClrIdx = xlAutomatic
Else
vFntClrIdx = 5 'blue in a default palette
End If

rng.Font.ColorIndex = vFntClrIdx
End If

errH:

End Sub

Note SpecialCells in VBA fails if a little over 8000 discontiguous areas are
involved.

Also try Ctrl-`¬¦ the key under Esc.

Regards,
Peter T

 

[gonecrazybacksoon]

Hey Doc

Very easy... just create the buttons, and in the code module paste this
line for viewing all the cells that contain formulas...

ActiveWindow.DisplayFormulas = True

To hide the formulas, just insert this line...

ActiveWindow.DisplayFormulas = False

Let me know if you win.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for this tip.

I am already aware of the Display Formulas Option but I wanted something
that I could use in programming. I was presented with a 7500 line spreadsheet
with mixed formula and text/value content. It was a nightmare just looking
at. The changed background would "position" the eye easier to the cells
needing attention. Not to mention the fact that I could trap a certain
attribute or property and filter the column. I needed knowledge on
conditional range and property handling.

Thanks anyway!

 

[Guest]

Peter I believe your approach assumes a single Font Color for the whole
range. I am asking for a way to change the background color (it is easier to
spot) back and forth regardless if it is the same for all cells or not.

That is why I am looking for a way to change each cell color individually.
Is this possible?

 

[Peter T]

Did you actually try the example.

If you want background fill change

vFntClrIdx = rng.Font.ColorIndex
to
vFntClrIdx = rng.Interior.ColorIndex

and xlAutomatic to xlNone

I don't understand why you want to process each cell individually

Regards,
Peter T

 

[Guest]

Because formula cells might have different background colors...

 

[Peter T]

Is there some other property you can change, eg pattern, font bold, .size
etc

In your OP you mentioned changing the colour index by some factor (not
300000 as colour index's are only in the region 1-56 and two -ve numbers),
if you have multiple format colours how would you differentiate which are
original & which temporarily changed.

Something along the lines of your objective is very doable but I can only
suggest consider the logic as to how you want to do that whilst retaining
the possibility to reset your original formats.

Regards,
Peter T

 

[Guest]

Peter first of all thanks a lot for your time and effort to help me.

I have tried to think of other properties to change i.e. I tried to add a
comment on every formula cell saying "This is a Formula", since I seldom use
comments on formula cells. I couldn't get that to work either (AddComment
etc.)

Btw, it IS possible to add and subtract a value such as 30000 to the
..Interior.Color property. It is probably dealt as a hex number. All I can
tell you is that Excel 2003 allows me to change between i.e. 7 and 30007, and
it produces different color shades. That is why I thought of "shifting" all
..Color values up and then down again. This method would leave the original
color intact after 2 runs (on/off).

What I don't know is how to process the cells in the
ActiveSheet.Cells.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeFormulas) selection one at a time,
querying its .Interior.Color value, changing it and then proceeding with the
next one. If a single action is performed on all cells at once I believe it
is impossible.

 

[Peter T]

I think you are confusing the Color property with ColorIndex (you mentioned
the latter in your OP). Cell colour formats can only accept colours from the
56 colour palette or a couple of system colours, ie .ColorIndex.

Each palette colour is stored as a long 0-16777215. If you try and apply
your own long colour number it will map to one of the colours assigned to a
colorindex. Incrementing a long colour by say 30000 will not shift the
colour by an intuitive amount, firstly as I've already said it will map to
the nearest colorindex colour, but even if not the long colour is actually
R + G * 256 + B * 256 * 256
where RGB are 0-255

30000 is a relatively small difference depending on the type of colour, may
well remap to the original colour, perhaps say while adding but not if
subtracting.

Unpredictable results may occur if you try applying a long colour outside
the 0-16777215 range.

What I don't know is how to process the cells in the
ActiveSheet.Cells.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeFormulas) selection one at a

time,

Set rng = Selection.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeFormulas, 23)
For each cel in rng
cel.interior.colorindex = blah

If you want to contact me off-line I have something in development that
might sort you out.

Regards,
Peter T
pmbthornton gmail com

 

[colofnature]

I've found this to be useful:
http://www.xl-logic.com/xl_files/vba/color_code.zip

You can recover the original formatting by copying it to a blan
worksheet and copying it back once you've analysed the formalae.


Co