Applying Colors to Worksheets and Cells

You can apply colors to the worksheet as a whole, to individual cells in the worksheet, and to the borders of cells and ranges. You can also apply patterns to cells. The following sections describe how to apply colors to worksheets and cells.

Note All color dialogs in Formula One for Java use the same color palette. You can change the colors that appear in the color palette. For information, see Setting Up the Color Palette.

Setting the Worksheet Background Color

The Workbook Designer allows you to define a background color for a worksheet. When you do this, all cells in the worksheet will have the same background color. You may also define an extra color, which is used to fill the area around the worksheet when a user scrolls to the right or bottom edge of the worksheet.

Note You may change the colors of individual cells using the Format Cells option. If colors have been applied to individual cells using the Format Cells option, those colors remain even after you change the worksheet background color. For information, see Setting Cell Fill Colors.

To define a background and extra color for your worksheet(s):

  1. Select a worksheet or worksheets.
  2. Choose the Format > Sheet > Properties option. Click the Color tab, shown below.

  3. Choose background and extra colors by clicking on the color in the color palette.
  4. Click OK.

Setting Cell Fill Colors

You can fill individual cells or ranges of cells with different colors from the color palette.

To fill a cell or range of cells with colors:

  1. Select the cell or range of cells.
  2. Select Format > Cells to display the Format Cells dialog box. Click on the Fill tab, shown below.

  3. Click Solid to apply a solid color from the Fill Color palette to the selected cell(s).
  4. Click Pattern and choose a pattern from the drop-down list to apply a pattern to the selected cell(s). The pattern will be made up of a color from the Fill Color palette and another color from the Pattern Color palette.
  5. Click OK.

Note To change the fill color of the selected cell(s), you can also use the Fill Color button on the Formatting toolbar.

Setting Cell Borders

You can apply borders to the top, bottom, left, and right sides of a cell. You may also select a range of cells and place borders on different locations of the cells in that range.

To add borders to cells:

  1. Select the cells you want to add borders to.
  2. Select Format > Cells and select the Borders tab from the Format Cells dialog box. The following illustration shows an example of the Borders tab.

  3. Select a line style from the Style frame.
  4. Select a border color from the color palette.
  5. Click in the appropriate boxes in the Border frame to specify the location of the borders. The border location you choose will have the line style and/or border color you selected, as shown in the sample.
  6. Click Apply to apply the changes and leave the dialog box open; click OK to apply the changes and close the dialog box.