How to change the excel background color

Question

Hello,

Can anyone please assist me to change the excel background to white? I have tried to change the office theme, but the background remained green. I also tried to select No Fill, but it defaults to green.

Answer 1

Hi Shiying L ,

I'm Mukesh and I will be happy to help you out with your question.

Can you please share your Excel version as well as your OS version ?
Does any new worksheet start with Green Background?

-Select the cell or range of cells you want to format.
-Click Home > Format Cells dialog launcher, or press Ctrl+Shift+F.
-On the Fill tab, under Background Color,select white instead of no color and see if that helps.

I hope this information helps. If you have any questions please let me know and I will be glad to help you out.

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Regards
Mukesh

Answer 2

Hi Mukesh,

Thanks for your reply, my excel version is 365 and OS version is Window 10 for home and 64-bit.

I changed the color to white by clicking the below button, but I cannot see the grid anymore, is there a way to show the grid?

the background of the below dialog is still green, is there anyway I can change it to white?

Answer 3

Hi Shiying,

I'm Michelle and I'd be glad to help you out with your query or concern.

There are drawbacks to such an approach, however. First, the colors used to fill the cells could interfere with the successful application of conditional formatting, if the conditional formatting involves the use of fill colors. (Conditional formatting applied to font specifications shouldn't be a problem.)

Another option is to create, in your favorite graphics program, a small rectangle that matches the color you want to be used for your background. Save the small rectangle as a graphics file, using the PNG file format. Then, within Excel, follow these steps:

Display the Page Layout tab of the ribbon.
Click the Background tool, in the Page Setup group. Excel 2007 and Excel 2010 display the Sheet Background dialog box. In Excel 2013 and later versions you see the Insert Pictures screen in which you should click the Browse link at the right of the From a File option. You'll then see the Sheet Background dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Sheet Background dialog box.

Use the controls in the dialog box to locate and select the graphic image you created (the small rectangle of color).
Click the Insert button.
The graphic image is placed in the background and repeated over and over again so that it fills the entire background. The benefit to this approach is that it doesn't affect any conditional formatting and the background image won't print.

Speaking of conditional formatting, if you aren't using conditional formatting for any purpose in a worksheet, you could use it to create your background. In a blank area of your workbook, define a cell that contains the value True. Then select your worksheet that you want to have the background color and use a conditional format to define that color. The format can look at the cell you defined, and if it is True, then the color is applied. If the cell is not True, then the color is not applied. This allows you to turn the background color on or off (for printing) by changing the value of a single cell.

You could also define styles for use in your worksheet. Define a style that has the desired background color, and another that does not. You can then apply the colored style when editing and the non-colored style when preparing to print.

You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Changing Excel's Background Color.
https://excel.tips.net/T003133_Changing_Excels_Background_Color

Note: This is a non-Microsoft website. The page appears to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the site that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the site before you decide to download and install it.

I hope this information helps you. If you have any questions, please do let me know and I'll be more than happy to assist you further with this.

Best Regards,

Michelle

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Answer 4

Thanks Michelle for your reply.

My main issue is I am not able to set the default color to white. All the new worksheet starts with green background, so I wanted to know is there a way to change the default background color to white instead of fill in the white color.

Regards,

Shiying

Answer 5

Thank you for your response, Shiying. Yet, please note that you can only highlight data in cells by using Fill Color to add or change the background color or pattern of cells. There's no option to change the default color to white, apparently.

I hope this information helps you. If you have any questions, please do let me know and I'll be more than happy to assist you further with this.

Best Regards,

Michelle

Give back to the Community. Help the next person who has this issue by indicating if this reply solved your problem. Click Yes or No below.