I often hide all unused columns to the right of my used area, and unused rows
below. That leaves a blank area in my Excel window where there are no rows
or columns showing. That blank area is colored a medium gray. I would like
to be able to change that background color to something else, but I can't
figure out how. I have tried the Windows Display control panel settings, but
I have not found the right setting to change.

If anyone out there knows the solution, please chime in!

Thanks,

Eric

FORMAT / STYLE
MODIFY
PATTERNS


"EricG" wrote:

I often hide all unused columns to the right of my used area, and unused rows
below. That leaves a blank area in my Excel window where there are no rows
or columns showing. That blank area is colored a medium gray. I would like
to be able to change that background color to something else, but I can't
figure out how. I have tried the Windows Display control panel settings, but
I have not found the right setting to change.

If anyone out there knows the solution, please chime in!

Thanks,

Eric

Patrick,

Thanks for the reply. That only works on cells. The area I'm talking about
is the window background, which seems to be unaffected by the default style.

Eric

"Patrick Molloy" wrote:

FORMAT / STYLE
MODIFY
PATTERNS


"EricG" wrote:

I often hide all unused columns to the right of my used area, and unused rows
below. That leaves a blank area in my Excel window where there are no rows
or columns showing. That blank area is colored a medium gray. I would like
to be able to change that background color to something else, but I can't
figure out how. I have tried the Windows Display control panel settings, but
I have not found the right setting to change.

If anyone out there knows the solution, please chime in!

Thanks,

Eric

stumped :(
I don't think there is a way to do this

"EricG" wrote:

Patrick,

Thanks for the reply. That only works on cells. The area I'm talking about
is the window background, which seems to be unaffected by the default style.

Eric

"Patrick Molloy" wrote:

FORMAT / STYLE
MODIFY
PATTERNS


"EricG" wrote:

I often hide all unused columns to the right of my used area, and unused rows
below. That leaves a blank area in my Excel window where there are no rows
or columns showing. That blank area is colored a medium gray. I would like
to be able to change that background color to something else, but I can't
figure out how. I have tried the Windows Display control panel settings, but
I have not found the right setting to change.

If anyone out there knows the solution, please chime in!

Thanks,

Eric

Usually that color has the RGB values 192,192,192 and I haven't found
a way to modify it. Not connected somehow to the Excel Color Palette
and not connected to the Windws colors (Appearance settings). A long
time ago I found a vba code snippet how to change this background
color for the MS Access application via some windows API calls, but I
never figured out whether the same can be achieved somehow for the
excel window background. Not a trivial one.

It's funny how my trivial questions always result in non-trivial solutions!
I think I'll give up and live with the ugly gray background.

You may have seen this approach in Access:

http://www.lebans.com/changemdibackground.htm

"minimaster" wrote:

Usually that color has the RGB values 192,192,192 and I haven't found
a way to modify it. Not connected somehow to the Excel Color Palette
and not connected to the Windws colors (Appearance settings). A long
time ago I found a vba code snippet how to change this background
color for the MS Access application via some windows API calls, but I
never figured out whether the same can be achieved somehow for the
excel window background. Not a trivial one.

no, its a good question, It would be great if the background could be made
transparent so that the desktop or whatever is beneath the app would show
through.

"EricG" wrote:

It's funny how my trivial questions always result in non-trivial solutions!
I think I'll give up and live with the ugly gray background.

You may have seen this approach in Access:

http://www.lebans.com/changemdibackground.htm

"minimaster" wrote:

Usually that color has the RGB values 192,192,192 and I haven't found
a way to modify it. Not connected somehow to the Excel Color Palette
and not connected to the Windws colors (Appearance settings). A long
time ago I found a vba code snippet how to change this background
color for the MS Access application via some windows API calls, but I
never figured out whether the same can be achieved somehow for the
excel window background. Not a trivial one.