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Change Excel's cell highlight color via System Prefs Apps
I've been finding the cursor (cell highlighter) in Excel vX quite hard to see (very soft blue). After a colleague complained about the same problem, I went scouting to see if this setting could be changed.

The settings for all highlight settings in Office X are controlled by the System Preferences -> General option. The highlight colour settings can be changed to anything you want, but you will need to restart the Office application to see the changes.

It's fairly hard to find a perfect setting, as highlighted letters in Word are easier to see using a light highlight colour, while the Excel cursor is easier to see using a dark colour. I've settled on a mid blue/purple that looks alright with the Aqua theme, and is a reasonable compromise for both Word and Excel ... and now I can easily spot which cell I am on in Excel.

[Editor's note: Yes, this is a bit basic, but if you're new to the Mac, you might not suspect that the system highlight color carries over to most applications, including Office (though some, like Terminal, give you direct control). This helps give the Mac a consistent user interface, but it also means that you may never find just the right color as it has to work in very disparate applications. After much fiddling, I've setteled on a slightly tweaked version of the "orange" highlight, as it provides good general visibility while still working well with selected text.]
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Change Excel's cell highlight color via System Prefs | 5 comments | Create New Account
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Thank you!
Authored by: Deut3221 on Feb 06, '03 11:35:07AM

Great hint for us switchers!
-steve



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Just one clarification...
Authored by: mm2270 on Feb 06, '03 08:29:04PM

For anyone that doesn't know this, this is not just an OS X hint. This trick works in OS 9 and earlier too. The System highlight color controls many other applications' highlight color, such as Office '98/2001, etc.

Yes, I realize this is MacOSXHints, but I just thought I would mention it.



[ Reply to This | # ]
color in exel
Authored by: hobbit on Feb 07, '03 10:20:09AM

Sorry but I think I am looking at the bat way .
By preference -> General: I din“t find anything to change about color



[ Reply to This | # ]
System Prefs...
Authored by: robg on Feb 07, '03 10:33:27AM

It's in the Mac OS X System Preferences General section, not Excel's...

-rob.



[ Reply to This | # ]
Change Excel's cell highlight color via System Prefs
Authored by: vickyd on Jul 07, '08 03:04:13PM

For Leopard, System Preferences --> Appearance then change highlight color from blue to purple (which works great for me).



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