Saving custom colors

Question

Saving custom colors

Anonymous

While I deeply dislike the "color" setup in this version of Excel, it is perhaps easier to create a custom color. In fact, I have created many such colors and use some of them for very specific reasons. For an example, if I want to put a box around some text to call attention to it, then there is a given color I use which is done by selecting one of the two red choices, then going to the custom color, setting blue and green at both "0" (zero) and setting red at "100". It is a deep dark red. I also have created a shade of blue that I use for hyperlinks. In short, I have created almost a library of custom colors used for very specific reasons every time I use one of those colors.

I would like for Microsoft to give the users the ability to create our own custom library of colors so when we created one such color and then go into a new workbook, we still have that color available without having to recreate the color for each workbook.

Is this possible for Microsoft to do this in some manner that does not add any complexity or complications to what we already have?

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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10 answers

Answer 1

Hi TemporaryUser0101,

Thanks for reaching out. My name is Ali. I'm an Independent Advisor and a Microsoft user like you. I'll be happy to help you out today.

Yes, this feature is available to create a custom theme using custom color, fonts, effects, etc. and then save this theme as default to a specified location so whenever you open a new workbook you can have your custom theme selected as default.

Please refer to the link below for step by step procedure.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/chan...

I hope it worked out well for you. If not, please reply back to this forum to let me know or mark this as resolved along with your feedback. :) I will be glad to follow up and help you.

Thanks,

Ali

Answer 2

Anonymous

When someone answers a question we have posted, is there anyway of getting an email address for that person and then directly emailing that individual?

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Answer 3

Rohn, after examing both of the two suggestions whereas I believe you are basically both recommending the same, and given more thought to it after reading what you offered, I think you may have it. I will attempt to give it a try and see what happens, however, since I thoroughly do not understand "colors" in Windows 10, I may well blow this thing before even getting started. You see, if you recall, I jumped from XP to Windows 10. This has caused an enormous issue for me for at teh moment and since going to Windows 10, I am stuck on the "old" way of XP for colors and many other things and the so-called new way, to me, is extremely cumbersome and difficult to understand. I went to Windows 10 in August or September of 2016, and am yet to learn the workings for colors in this system. Still I have not found, nor honestly looked for a tutorial on Windows 10 Colors but if I did that may help a great deal. Any ideas?

Answer 4

I see what you are saying, but still not what I am looking for. As far as your idea, I can so same by simply opening a new workbook and using it to hold my custom colors, fonts and etc, but I don't want that. I want to be able to use the colors I create anytime in any workbook without having to switch to this, that or something else. It may not seem so, but when you create as many workbooks as I do, changing to a another workbook all frequently does not do the same as having it available at any place and time whenever I need it. Doing the work I do, I may create 20 workbooks in 1 hour. Therefore in any given day, you can see where I create a multitude of workbooks and it may not seem like a big deal but having to stop to get to a color I need, open another workbook, wait for it to load, find the color and copy it or whatever to move on, becomes very cumbersome. Therefore, I want my custom colors available to me when I create them so no matter what workbook I am in, I can get that color instantly as with any other color available generally to the public in all workbooks.

Thank you for trying.

Answer 5

Excel does not give you as much control over colors as Word.

One option to consider is to create a custom "theme"

Set a Default Theme in Excel

When you create a new Excel workbook, you’ll notice that it always reverts to the Office theme color by default.

However, in some cases, you might have a set of defined theme colors that you want to use every time you create a new workbook.

Instead of changing the colors of all the elements in the workbook one by one, Excel allows you to store a custom theme that you can apply with a few clicks.

Unfortunately, unlike Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel does not have an option to set a custom theme as the default theme.

Luckily, there is a workaround to do this on Microsoft Excel. To do this, save an empty Excel sheet containing the desired theme colors as an Excel template inside the Excel Start folder.

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All about themes, Quick Styles, cell styles, and background styles (Office 2007)https://support.office.com/en-za/article/All-about-themes-Quick-Styles-cell-styles-and-background-styles-2cf8ffb9-4c87-47b3-9b36-bb2e8a836288

This article discusses document themes and styles.

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Apply your brand to Office documents with themes / Apply or customize a document themehttp://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HA101644061033.aspx

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***************** Bonus Reading ***************

No, this article does not answer your question.

This old article has a lot of useful information about using colors in Excel. Unfortunately it was written for Excel 2003, so some of the tips are no longer useful, but most still are.

! Color Related Tips from DMCritchie

http://dmcritchie.mvps.org/excel/colors.htm

. * Color Palette and the 56 Excel ColorIndex Colors

. * How the color palette works (#palette)

. * Copy color palettes between workbooks (#copy)

. * Hex equivalents

. * Gray scale

. * Colors in cell custom formatting

. * pastel HTML colors

. * 16 DOS Colors

. * Setting colors in Excel VBA

. * Setting font colors

. * VBA Clear constants from color cells

. * Determining Interior color of a cell

. * VBA Coloring selection

. * Populating cell value based on Cell Interior Color (#popvalue)

. * Setting Interior Color based on another Cell (#popbased)

. * Sorting on Interior Cell Color (#sorting)

. * Interior Color, using Count, SUM, etc. (#count)

. * Determining the Row color based on cell value in that row (#rowcolor)

. * Delete Rows Based on RED interior color in Column A (#DelRows)

. * HEX Conversions for RGB values (#hexconv)

. * Changing the Colors of your Excel Color Palette (#chgpalette)

. * Changing the Color of your Excel Cell Comment (#cellcommentcolor)

. * Changing the Colors of Worksheet Tabs (#tabs)

. * Color Triangles in Excel (#triangles)

. * Manually Changing the Interior Color of Worksheet Cells (#manual)

. * Color Coding Cells for Usage (#colorcoding)

. * Color Charts on the Web (#colorcharts)

. * Color Detector D (#detector) – color dropper

. * Color Luminance (#Luma)

. * Colors used in other programs (not Excel) / (#pgms)

. * Pages on this site using Color (#thissite)

. * Newsgroup Postings on Colors (#postings)

. * Other Pages on Colors in Excel (#otherxl)

. * Colorblind (#colorblind)

. * Other Pages Making Use of Color (#other)

. * Problems formatting color (#problems)

. * Printers, Printing and colors -- How Printers work (#printers)

. * Microsoft Knowledge DataBase articles about Excel Colors (#mskb)

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Saving custom colors

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