Mac Forum / Applications / Excel / August 2007

I always hate questions phrased to include "...is there *any* way" - the
answer is always YES, qualified by "If you know how to rewrite the
software":)

More on point: If I understand you correctly (by "backgrounds" you mean Fill
Colors, right?), you can't add colors to the available selection, but you
can *change* the colors in that number. Go to Excel> Preferences> Color,
select a swatch you don't like, then click Modify. Pick a color you want to
replace it with & it will appear in the color palettes in place of the
previous color. Each substitution has to be made separately.

Also - for Fills & Lines - you can select More [Line/Fill] Colors... from
the palette & add additional colors to the grid below the color picker (of
your choice). Up to 8 can be displayed in the palette at one time. Those,
however, aren't available for text.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

On 8/14/07 3:43 AM, in article
1187077425.948849.276630@r34g2000hsd.googlegroups.com, "luftikus143"
<mehr.mucke@googlemail.com> wrote:

Bob has told you how to change the Color Palette. Note that this is a
Workbook setting, not a global setting, so changing the palette in one
worksheet won't change any others.

For existing sheets you can import the palette from another sheet. to
automate this, you can record a macro of opening the workbook with the
desired palette, then copying the palette (Preferences/Color/Copy
from...) and closing the workbook.

To make every new sheet use that palette, create a default workbook: Lay
out your colors/formatting/number of sheets, etc. in a fresh workbook,
then save it *as a template* named "Workbook" (no quotes, no extension)
in the XL Startup folder. By default that folder is

   ~:Microsoft Office 2004:Office:Startup:Excel

where ~ is your OSX home account directory. Put it in your alternate
startup folder if you've set one in Preferences/General.