Need help from Excel experts

[Cruzan]

I'm using Excel 2003 and would like to change the color shown when multiple cells (or entire rows or columns) are selected. Right now the selected cells have a sort of light Blue-Gray background color and I'd like to change that to Light Turquoise (as shown on the Fill Color palette on the Drawing toolbar) so the selected text is a little bit easier to read.

[Jean Louise Finch]

1. Found a rather irritating way to do it

If you go to Start-->Control Panel-->Display-->Appearance tab-->Advanced button ...

then drop down the Item menu and select "Selected items". Pick the color of your choice, watch your computer freak out for a few seconds, and then see if it worked. The problem is, that means that any of the things you select (in Explorer, etc) will now be highlighted in whatever color you've selected. Not ideal, but the only thing I could find as I procrastinate the day away!

Jean Louise

[Cruzan]

3. Thanks!

You're right, it's more than I'm asking for but it does the trick. I'll see if I can get used to having every instance of a selection in every Windows app (or at least the Microsoft ones) use that color rather than just Excel. Also, in the scheme definition I had to change the selected foreground color from white (what it was with the previously set Windows Standard scheme) to black so I could read the selected text. And had to put the desktop color back to what it was... hopefully no other surprises.

Oh, and I don't have an Advanced button to press (I'm using Windows 2000 Professional):

[Pushed To The Left]

2. Use the "fill color" icon after selecting the cells

[Cruzan]

4. Sorry, that's not what I was trying to do

It's the color used as you're selecting I wanted to change rather than just the fill color of a selected area.