Colors

[DavidJ726]

When adding color to cells I only have 40 colors to choose from, basic
colors but very little shades. I thought I could access the "color wheel"
and get even more colors. Am I mistaken? Are the 40 colors (5 rows of 8 in
the drop down menu) the only ones available in Excel? I rather doubt it.
For example, in Word when I choose font color, I see the 40 colors I'm
refering to, but I also have the option for more colors.

Under Tools / Options / Colors, I see the Standard colors, but no option
that I can see to increase the colors I have access to. If I choose modify,
I see the color "wheel" and the option under custom are RGB or HSL.

This is Office 2003, Win XP W/SP 2, and the video card is set to 1024x768
and 32bit color.

Thanks,

David...

 

[swatsp0p]

You are so close... Tools>Options>Color -- Click on the Standard color
you want to change (avoid changing the Black or White) then click
Modify... and click the Custom tab. Select HSL. You now have 16+
million choices. Pick one. Either click on the pallette to select or
enter your color numbers in the Hue, Sat and Lum boxes.

Note the two rows of color swatches below the main color pallette are
for charts. Clicking Reset returns all colors to the Excel defaults.

HTH

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

David,

For cells, you have only the 40 colors in the workbook pallette available to
you. You can change any particular pallette color with Tools - Options -
Color, but the worksheet can use only the 40 colors in the pallette. The
pallette stays with the workbook; other workbooks aren't affected, unless
you copy the pallette to them. You can't add any colors -- still 40 (more
for charts). For Autoshapes (drawing toolbar), you can specify a any color
with RGB or HSL, or by clicking in the hue/saturation and lightness boxes.
Any such color gets sort of "added" to the color pallette, but only usable
for Autoshapes. Cells are still stuck with only the 40 colors of the
pallette.

 

[Dave Peterson]

I think Earl meant to type 56 colors. The dropdown for choosing fill or font
color only shows 40 colors.

But if you go to Format|Cells|Patterns or choose a color for the font
(format|cells|font|color dropdown, you'll see 56 colors.

David McRitchie has a bunch more info at:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/colors.htm

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

Dave,

It was a mistake. When I said 40, I was using the number base ??? from my
home planet Druidia. The last time I calculated the coordinates for a trip
from there to here, I made the same mistake, which would have put them, at
our horror, at a TV studio where they make all-night infommercials.
Fortunately, this was during the presidential campaigns, which they heard
and turned around and went back home.

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

Well, shoot. I used three characters via Alt+numeric keypad, and it
replaced them with ??? once posted. Guess that made even less sense.
°
--
Earl Kiosterud
mvpearl omitthisword at verizon period net
-------------------------------------------

Dave,

It was a mistake. When I said 40, I was using the number base ??? from my
home planet Druidia. The last time I calculated the coordinates for a
trip from there to here, I made the same mistake, which would have put
them, at our horror, at a TV studio where they make all-night
infommercials. Fortunately, this was during the presidential campaigns,
which they heard and turned around and went back home.

 

[Dave Peterson]

I just figured that it was a character from Druidia that didn't translate
correctly.

By the way, thanks to your ancestors for Stonehenge.