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Excel 2007 - Color of Selected Sheets is too much like unselected sheets - Episode 907

551 views · Published 18 December 2008 · 3:57 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: MrExcel.com · 2008 · Education

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Microsoft Excel Tutorial: In Excel for Office 2007, how to tell selected sheets from other sheets.

Welcome to another episode of the MrExcel netcast! I'm Bill Jelen and today's idea comes from one of my students, Harry, at Culver-Stockton College in Missouri. During a recent seminar, I was discussing group mode in Excel 2007 and how frustrating it is to differentiate between selected and unselected cells. As you can see at the bottom of the screen, the colors for selected and unselected sheets are almost identical. The same issue arises when selecting data within a sheet. In Excel 2003, there was a clear color difference, but in 2007, the change in hue is only 6.7%, making it difficult to distinguish between selected and unselected cells.

During the seminar, Harry suggested a simple solution - changing the tab colors. By right-clicking on a tab and selecting "Tab Color," you can choose a different color for selected and unselected tabs. This makes it much easier to see which tabs are selected and which are not. I want to thank Harry and all the students at Culver-Stockton College for hosting me and for this great idea.

If you want to make this change for all future workbooks, you can customize your default template by changing the tab colors. However, there is still an issue with differentiating between selected and unselected cells within a sheet. I have tried extending Harry's solution by changing the background color, but this results in losing the gridlines. So, if any of you have come up with a better solution, please feel free to drop me a note at [email protected].

In conclusion, while Excel 2007 may have made it more difficult to differentiate between selected and unselected cells, Harry's simple solution of changing tab colors has made a significant difference. Thank you for watching this netcast from MrExcel, and don't forget to subscribe for more helpful tips and tricks. See you next time!

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One of the annoying things about Excel 2007 is that the color for selected sheets and cells is almost identical to the color for unselected sheets and cells. Harry from Culver-Stockton college suggests a simple solution for the tab color in Episode 907.

Buy Bill Jelen's latest Excel book: https://www.mrexcel.com/products/latest/

Table of Contents
(0:00) Theme Song
(0:15) Problem Statement: Color of Excel sheet tabs in 2007
(0:38) Excel Group Mode for selected sheets
(1:25) RGB of selected cells in Excel 2003 vs Excel 2007
(2:06) Harry suggests: Change tab color so you can tell difference
(2:39) Set up template to change tab color in the future
(3:35) Clicking Like Really Helps The Algorithm 

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