XL2002: Color Palette Looks Different in Microsoft Excel 2002

When you select a color from the color palette, the value of the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications ColorIndex property of the color you select may not be what you expect.

This occurs because colors within the color palette are sorted chromatically, not by color index. This behavior is different than in Microsoft Excel version 5.0 or 7.0.

In Excel, you can view the color palette by clicking the arrow just to the right of the Font Color button on the Formatting toolbar.

In Microsoft Excel version 5.0 or 7.0, colors are arranged on the color palette by color index. The first row of colors contains colors 1 through 8, the second row contains colors 9 through 16, and so on.

In Excel 2002, colors are arranged on the color palette in chromatic order. The first row contains the eight darkest colors, the second row is lighter than the first and so on to the last row, which contains the eight lightest colors.

The ColorIndex property values have not changed, however, so macro code that changes the color of fonts or cell backgrounds should work exactly the same in Excel 2002 as it does in earlier versions of Excel.

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

For more information about the ColorIndex property, in the Visual Basic Editor, click Microsoft Visual Basic Help on the Help menu, type colorindex property in the Office Assistant or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topic.