How do you make the highlighting color darker when selecting multiple cells?

Do you want to make it darker while only selecting it? Or do you want to make
a darker highlight? To make a cell or cells with a darker highlight you can
select from diiffernt highlight color from the format bar. Otherwise while
selecting a cell you cannot change the color.

"paulcfo" wrote:

How do you make the highlighting color darker when selecting multiple cells?

I have the same problem.

This is not appear to be a cell formating issue. This appears to be a
display setting option. When I use F8, Ctrl Click, or Shift Click to select
multiple cells the selected cells are not highlighted. I can tell they are
selected from the row and columns being highlighted, but the cells themselves
do not change color so I can't tell what cells are highlighted.


"paulcfo" wrote:

How do you make the highlighting color darker when selecting multiple cells?

You can help this by increasing the Contrast setting on your monitor.

Pyle wrote:

I have the same problem.

This is not appear to be a cell formating issue. This appears to be a
display setting option. When I use F8, Ctrl Click, or Shift Click to select
multiple cells the selected cells are not highlighted. I can tell they are
selected from the row and columns being highlighted, but the cells themselves
do not change color so I can't tell what cells are highlighted.


"paulcfo" wrote:


How do you make the highlighting color darker when selecting multiple cells?

The contrast setting on the monitor has no effect.

Cells with no fill do not darken at all. I can see the color change on
shaded cells.

Any other ideas? I think I remember a setting in Vista that adjusts the
highlight color that Office inherits, but we are on XP with Office 2007 so I
don't know where to look to fix this.


"Bob I" wrote:

You can help this by increasing the Contrast setting on your monitor.

Pyle wrote:

I have the same problem.

This is not appear to be a cell formating issue. This appears to be a
display setting option. When I use F8, Ctrl Click, or Shift Click to select
multiple cells the selected cells are not highlighted. I can tell they are
selected from the row and columns being highlighted, but the cells themselves
do not change color so I can't tell what cells are highlighted.

Can't say about Vista. You could try the different "Color Themes" in the
Excel Options, Popular settings.

Pyle wrote:

The contrast setting on the monitor has no effect.

Cells with no fill do not darken at all. I can see the color change on
shaded cells.

Any other ideas? I think I remember a setting in Vista that adjusts the
highlight color that Office inherits, but we are on XP with Office 2007 so I
don't know where to look to fix this.


"Bob I" wrote:


You can help this by increasing the Contrast setting on your monitor.

Pyle wrote:


I have the same problem.

This is not appear to be a cell formating issue. This appears to be a
display setting option. When I use F8, Ctrl Click, or Shift Click to select
multiple cells the selected cells are not highlighted. I can tell they are
selected from the row and columns being highlighted, but the cells themselves
do not change color so I can't tell what cells are highlighted.

Thank you so much for posting the question and responses to this problem. I
have the same issue and have searched and searchd for a way to correct this.
Also having "old" eyes, this is a very unfortunate change in the system. As
I use excel almost daily, itis very difficult to work with the new look. I
did changethe contrast and it helped some, but it still doesn't show like the
old version. Maybe someone at Microsoft will read these questions and try to
make improvements.

"Bob I" wrote:

Can't say about Vista. You could try the different "Color Themes" in the
Excel Options, Popular settings.

Pyle wrote:

The contrast setting on the monitor has no effect.

Cells with no fill do not darken at all. I can see the color change on
shaded cells.

Any other ideas? I think I remember a setting in Vista that adjusts the
highlight color that Office inherits, but we are on XP with Office 2007 so I
don't know where to look to fix this.


"Bob I" wrote:


You can help this by increasing the Contrast setting on your monitor.

Pyle wrote:


I have the same problem.

This is not appear to be a cell formating issue. This appears to be a
display setting option. When I use F8, Ctrl Click, or Shift Click to select
multiple cells the selected cells are not highlighted. I can tell they are
selected from the row and columns being highlighted, but the cells themselves
do not change color so I can't tell what cells are highlighted.

There are several threads on this now that should get consolodated into to
one FAQ:

Depending on the monitor the highlight of the selected cells in Excell 2007
can be very light. There are a couple of easy options to try to address this
(short of MS adding a user option to adjust the highlight percentage):

1) Try adjusting the contrast of your monitor - either up or down. I have a
desktop monitor with a laptop docking station so have a 2-monitor setup. With
the Excel window on the desktop monitor I could barely see the selected cells
but when I dragged the window to the laptop the highlight was fine. The
contrast on the monitor was in the 70-80% range and when I adjusted it to
40-50% the highlight was much more visible.

2) If adjusting the monitor doesn't work you can try changing the window
background color. Right click on the desktop and select properties. Click on
the appearance tab. Click on advanced (oooh...). Select window from the item
drop down list. Click on color one and click on other... at the bottom. On
the upper right drag the black triangle down until you see the color box
darken a little, I adjusted from Red=Green=Blue=255 to 230 for my original
monitor settings. The downside of this is the background can look pretty
dingy - especially if you then adjust the contrast down.

1) is preferred if it works.

"Barb" wrote:

Thank you so much for posting the question and responses to this problem. I
have the same issue and have searched and searchd for a way to correct this.
Also having "old" eyes, this is a very unfortunate change in the system. As
I use excel almost daily, itis very difficult to work with the new look. I
did changethe contrast and it helped some, but it still doesn't show like the
old version. Maybe someone at Microsoft will read these questions and try to
make improvements.

"Bob I" wrote:

Can't say about Vista. You could try the different "Color Themes" in the
Excel Options, Popular settings.

Pyle wrote:

The contrast setting on the monitor has no effect.

Cells with no fill do not darken at all. I can see the color change on
shaded cells.

Any other ideas? I think I remember a setting in Vista that adjusts the
highlight color that Office inherits, but we are on XP with Office 2007 so I
don't know where to look to fix this.


"Bob I" wrote:


You can help this by increasing the Contrast setting on your monitor.

Pyle wrote:


I have the same problem.

This is not appear to be a cell formating issue. This appears to be a
display setting option. When I use F8, Ctrl Click, or Shift Click to select
multiple cells the selected cells are not highlighted. I can tell they are
selected from the row and columns being highlighted, but the cells themselves
do not change color so I can't tell what cells are highlighted.

hi
i finally figured this out with a little help from Gregor.

to change the colour, right click on your desktop and select properties.
Click on the appearance tab. Click on advanced, select 'selected items' from
the Item drop down box and then change the 'color 1' box to the desired
selection colour.
once completed click ok and then click apply.
this will then change the colour you select in excel to the colour you
requested. it will also change the colour other items are selected in, i.e.
outlook emails etc, but it works

"Gregor" wrote:

There are several threads on this now that should get consolodated into to
one FAQ:

Depending on the monitor the highlight of the selected cells in Excell 2007
can be very light. There are a couple of easy options to try to address this
(short of MS adding a user option to adjust the highlight percentage):

1) Try adjusting the contrast of your monitor - either up or down. I have a
desktop monitor with a laptop docking station so have a 2-monitor setup. With
the Excel window on the desktop monitor I could barely see the selected cells
but when I dragged the window to the laptop the highlight was fine. The
contrast on the monitor was in the 70-80% range and when I adjusted it to
40-50% the highlight was much more visible.

2) If adjusting the monitor doesn't work you can try changing the window
background color. Right click on the desktop and select properties. Click on
the appearance tab. Click on advanced (oooh...). Select window from the item
drop down list. Click on color one and click on other... at the bottom. On
the upper right drag the black triangle down until you see the color box
darken a little, I adjusted from Red=Green=Blue=255 to 230 for my original
monitor settings. The downside of this is the background can look pretty
dingy - especially if you then adjust the contrast down.

1) is preferred if it works.

"Barb" wrote:

Thank you so much for posting the question and responses to this problem. I
have the same issue and have searched and searchd for a way to correct this.
Also having "old" eyes, this is a very unfortunate change in the system. As
I use excel almost daily, itis very difficult to work with the new look. I
did changethe contrast and it helped some, but it still doesn't show like the
old version. Maybe someone at Microsoft will read these questions and try to
make improvements.

"Bob I" wrote:

Can't say about Vista. You could try the different "Color Themes" in the
Excel Options, Popular settings.

Pyle wrote:

The contrast setting on the monitor has no effect.

Cells with no fill do not darken at all. I can see the color change on
shaded cells.

Any other ideas? I think I remember a setting in Vista that adjusts the
highlight color that Office inherits, but we are on XP with Office 2007 so I
don't know where to look to fix this.


"Bob I" wrote:


You can help this by increasing the Contrast setting on your monitor.

Pyle wrote:


I have the same problem.

This is not appear to be a cell formating issue. This appears to be a
display setting option. When I use F8, Ctrl Click, or Shift Click to select
multiple cells the selected cells are not highlighted. I can tell they are
selected from the row and columns being highlighted, but the cells themselves
do not change color so I can't tell what cells are highlighted.

This only works for Windows icons... not MS Office tools.


"freckles81" wrote:

hi
i finally figured this out with a little help from Gregor.

to change the colour, right click on your desktop and select properties.
Click on the appearance tab. Click on advanced, select 'selected items' from
the Item drop down box and then change the 'color 1' box to the desired
selection colour.
once completed click ok and then click apply.
this will then change the colour you select in excel to the colour you
requested. it will also change the colour other items are selected in, i.e.
outlook emails etc, but it works

"Gregor" wrote:

There are several threads on this now that should get consolodated into to
one FAQ:

Depending on the monitor the highlight of the selected cells in Excell 2007
can be very light. There are a couple of easy options to try to address this
(short of MS adding a user option to adjust the highlight percentage):

1) Try adjusting the contrast of your monitor - either up or down. I have a
desktop monitor with a laptop docking station so have a 2-monitor setup. With
the Excel window on the desktop monitor I could barely see the selected cells
but when I dragged the window to the laptop the highlight was fine. The
contrast on the monitor was in the 70-80% range and when I adjusted it to
40-50% the highlight was much more visible.

2) If adjusting the monitor doesn't work you can try changing the window
background color. Right click on the desktop and select properties. Click on
the appearance tab. Click on advanced (oooh...). Select window from the item
drop down list. Click on color one and click on other... at the bottom. On
the upper right drag the black triangle down until you see the color box
darken a little, I adjusted from Red=Green=Blue=255 to 230 for my original
monitor settings. The downside of this is the background can look pretty
dingy - especially if you then adjust the contrast down.

1) is preferred if it works.

"Barb" wrote:

Thank you so much for posting the question and responses to this problem. I
have the same issue and have searched and searchd for a way to correct this.
Also having "old" eyes, this is a very unfortunate change in the system. As
I use excel almost daily, itis very difficult to work with the new look. I
did changethe contrast and it helped some, but it still doesn't show like the
old version. Maybe someone at Microsoft will read these questions and try to
make improvements.

"Bob I" wrote:

Can't say about Vista. You could try the different "Color Themes" in the
Excel Options, Popular settings.

Pyle wrote:

The contrast setting on the monitor has no effect.

Cells with no fill do not darken at all. I can see the color change on
shaded cells.

Any other ideas? I think I remember a setting in Vista that adjusts the
highlight color that Office inherits, but we are on XP with Office 2007 so I
don't know where to look to fix this.


"Bob I" wrote:


You can help this by increasing the Contrast setting on your monitor.

Pyle wrote:


I have the same problem.

This is not appear to be a cell formating issue. This appears to be a
display setting option. When I use F8, Ctrl Click, or Shift Click to select
multiple cells the selected cells are not highlighted. I can tell they are
selected from the row and columns being highlighted, but the cells themselves
do not change color so I can't tell what cells are highlighted.

I found out how to do this... although if you're on a network (at work maybe)
then it's typically locked/protected for administrator use only.

Click Run in the Start menu and type in 'regedit'. This opens your Registry
Editor. Locate this section:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\E xcel\Options. Right-click
and select New - DWORD Value. Name this value 'Options6'. Right-click the
Options6 key and select Modify. In the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, click
the Decimal Option and enter 16. When you restart Excel, range selections
will appear with a black background rather than gray. If you don't like this
look then just dlete the Options6 Registry entry.

"Marie" wrote:

This only works for Windows icons... not MS Office tools.


"freckles81" wrote:

hi
i finally figured this out with a little help from Gregor.

to change the colour, right click on your desktop and select properties.
Click on the appearance tab. Click on advanced, select 'selected items' from
the Item drop down box and then change the 'color 1' box to the desired
selection colour.
once completed click ok and then click apply.
this will then change the colour you select in excel to the colour you
requested. it will also change the colour other items are selected in, i.e.
outlook emails etc, but it works

"Gregor" wrote:

There are several threads on this now that should get consolodated into to
one FAQ:

Depending on the monitor the highlight of the selected cells in Excell 2007
can be very light. There are a couple of easy options to try to address this
(short of MS adding a user option to adjust the highlight percentage):

1) Try adjusting the contrast of your monitor - either up or down. I have a
desktop monitor with a laptop docking station so have a 2-monitor setup. With
the Excel window on the desktop monitor I could barely see the selected cells
but when I dragged the window to the laptop the highlight was fine. The
contrast on the monitor was in the 70-80% range and when I adjusted it to
40-50% the highlight was much more visible.

2) If adjusting the monitor doesn't work you can try changing the window
background color. Right click on the desktop and select properties. Click on
the appearance tab. Click on advanced (oooh...). Select window from the item
drop down list. Click on color one and click on other... at the bottom. On
the upper right drag the black triangle down until you see the color box
darken a little, I adjusted from Red=Green=Blue=255 to 230 for my original
monitor settings. The downside of this is the background can look pretty
dingy - especially if you then adjust the contrast down.

1) is preferred if it works.

"Barb" wrote:

Thank you so much for posting the question and responses to this problem. I
have the same issue and have searched and searchd for a way to correct this.
Also having "old" eyes, this is a very unfortunate change in the system. As
I use excel almost daily, itis very difficult to work with the new look. I
did changethe contrast and it helped some, but it still doesn't show like the
old version. Maybe someone at Microsoft will read these questions and try to
make improvements.

"Bob I" wrote:

Can't say about Vista. You could try the different "Color Themes" in the
Excel Options, Popular settings.

Pyle wrote:

The contrast setting on the monitor has no effect.

Cells with no fill do not darken at all. I can see the color change on
shaded cells.

Any other ideas? I think I remember a setting in Vista that adjusts the
highlight color that Office inherits, but we are on XP with Office 2007 so I
don't know where to look to fix this.


"Bob I" wrote:


You can help this by increasing the Contrast setting on your monitor.

Pyle wrote:


I have the same problem.

This is not appear to be a cell formating issue. This appears to be a
display setting option. When I use F8, Ctrl Click, or Shift Click to select
multiple cells the selected cells are not highlighted. I can tell they are
selected from the row and columns being highlighted, but the cells themselves
do not change color so I can't tell what cells are highlighted.