Going through the forum I found the answer; it is in KB833258. There does
not seem to be another solution than turning High Contrast off. And if there
is a warning that EXCEL fill colors will disappear if you chose the optio, it
is sure hard to find!

"Shane Devenshire" wrote:

Hi Philippeam,

I am not clear on what you mean by "High Contrast", however, if you are
applying colors form the 2007 color palette to a Excel 2003 file you will
loose the new capabilities when you are in 2003. Very simply put Excel 2003
supports 56 colors in the spreadsheet at one time while 2007 support 16
Million (I've heard different numbers on this.) When you apply colors from
Excel 2007 palette and save the file as a 2003 file Excel must convert the
colors to the 56 color palette, so there is a great lose of capability.

I get a warning when I save the 2003 file from within 2007. To turn this
option on choose Office Button, Prepare, Run Compatibility Checker, and
chick the box at the bottom left that says Check compatibility when saving
this workbook.

Cheers,
Shane Devenshire
Microsoft Excel MVP

"Philippeam" wrote in message
...
Vista SP1. Excel 2007 (Excel 2003 compatibility mode). I juts
(painfully)
discovered that if you use High Contrast the fill colors will not show in
one's Excel workbooks. It would be nice to have a warning! Any way to
resolve the issue?
Thanks