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MICROSOFT EXCEL

Add color to your Excel workbooks

Q. I would like A. There are several ways to add color to your Excel You can also add some color to your Excel
to add some workbooks. Some reasons you may want to do this workbook by changing the color of the gridlines
color to my Excel are to represent your organization’s colors, to distin- from the default gray. To do this, go to File,
workbooks. What guish items in your workbook, or just to give your Options, Advanced. Under the heading Display
are some ways of spreadsheet some personality. options for this worksheet, click the drop-down
doing that? The two most basic ways to add color to your arrow next to Gridline color and select the color
Excel spreadsheet are to use Fill Color and Font you want.
Color. These are located on the Home tab in the You can change the standard white background
Font group. You can use Fill Color to change the of your Excel spreadsheet to a more colorful
background color of specific cells and use Font background, perhaps one that represents your
Color to change the color of the content within organization or one that makes your spreadsheet
specific cells. more appealing. To do this, go to the Page Layout
Another way to add color to your Excel tab and choose Background from the Page Setup
workbook is to color-code your worksheet tabs. group. The Insert Pictures window will open. If
This helps differentiate the tabs at the bottom of you already have an image you would like to use as
your workbook, which is particularly useful when the background, choose From a file or OneDrive
the workbook contains many tabs. To color-code — Personal to navigate to the picture. You can also
a tab, right-click on the tab and choose Tab Color, choose Bing Image Search to choose an image
then choose your preferred color. While the tab is available online. Once you have chosen your image,
selected, the color will have a light gradient color. click Insert.
When the tab is no longer active, the color will turn I have created a workbook with examples of add-
solid. (See the screenshot below of a workbook with ing color to an Excel workbook. You can access the
colored tabs.) workbook and accompanying video with the online
version of this article at journalofaccountancy.com.
— By Kelly L. Williams, CPA, Ph.D. ■

journalofaccountancy.com May 2022 | 41