On Mon, 16 May 2005 20:13:34 -0600, "Kevin H. Stecyk"
wrote:

2) In a spreadsheet I inherited, I tried setting the background color to
blue on Columns C:Z. The "blue" on the toolbar palette was selected and
depressed, but the background remained white. If I went to Columns A or B,
the "blue" background worked. A & B columns are labels, whereas C onwards
are data.

Check for conditional formatting on the cells where you cannot change the
color.

Select one cell; then Format/Conditional Formatting and see what shows up.

I cannot help you with your problem #1


--ron