Excel cell color issues

Question

In my spreadsheet, the rows have alternating colors, one row white and one row pink throughout. However, I'm trying to see the color hex code for my pink cells and when I check they appear as white in the color picker. How do I fix this problem?

Answer 1

This likely happens because the color is coming from a table style or conditional formatting (banded rows), not from the cell’s actual Fill color. The color picker only shows the direct fill applied to the cell, so it reports white.

If the sheet is formatted as an Excel Table, click any cell in the pink row, go to the Table Design tab, and look at the Table Styles section. Right-click the style being used and choose Duplicate or Modify. In the style editor, find the element called First Row Stripe (or Second Row Stripe). Select it, click Format, then Fill, and the actual color used for the pink rows will appear and you can see or change it there.

If the striping came from conditional formatting instead, select a pink row cell and open Home → Conditional Formatting → Manage Rules. Change the dropdown to “This Worksheet”, select the rule that applies to the striped rows, click Edit Rule → Format → Fill. The pink color used by the rule should be shown there.

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hth

Marcin