Apply Background Color to a Cell or the Entire Sheet in Excel

As you know, White is the default background color in Excel and most of the time to highlight a cell or a range of cells, users prefer to apply the background color to the cells.

In Excel, background color can be applied using several ways, like by using the “Fill Color” option or by applying different types of conditions using the “Conditional Formatting” option and many more.

The background color once applied to the cells or the sheet using the “Fill Color” option will not change with the change in the value of the cells, on the other hand using the “Conditional Formatting” option, the color of the cells changes with the change in cell value based on the conditions applied.

We have mentioned some quick and simple steps for you to apply background color in Excel.

Apply Background Color Using Fill Color Option

• First, select the cell or range of cells or the entire sheet to apply the background color to the cell or range of cells or the entire sheet respectively.
• After that, go to the “Home” tab and then click on the “Fill Color” drop-down arrow and select the color you want to apply.
  
• Once you select the color, you will get your selected cells or cells range or the entire sheet highlighted with the selected color.

Apply Background Color Based on the Cell Values Using Conditional Formatting

Using conditional formatting users can apply background colors to the cells based on one or multiple conditions at the same time, like value greater than, value less than, values equal to, duplicate values, text in the cell, etc.

And whenever the cell value gets updated, the color of the cell changes automatically according to the conditions specified.

• First, select the entire sheet or a range of cells where you want to apply the background color formatting, and then go to the “Home” tab.
• After that, click on the “Conditional Formatting” drop-down arrow and then click on the “Highlight Cells Rules” and then click on the “More Rules” option.
  
• Once you click on “More Rules”, you will get the “New Formatting Rule” dialog box opened.
  
• Now, select the rule type “Format only cells that contain” and then select the formatting condition you want to apply then enter the value and then click on the “Format” button.
  
• Now in the “Format Cells” dialog box, select the “Fill” header and then choose the color you want to apply and then click OK.
  
• Once you click OK, you will get back to the “New Formatting Rule” dialog box, where you can now see the preview of the selected color.
• In the end, click OK.
  
• At this point, you will get the cells of your selected range highlighted with the background color based on the condition applied.
  

In the above example, we have selected the condition of “Greater than or equal to” with a base value of “10000” and color as green therefore all the cells having a value of 10000 or more got highlighted with the green background color.

To apply more color formatting conditions on the same range, users need to follow the same steps and just need to apply the second condition parallel to the first one that we have created above.

• Again, select the range of cells and go to the “New Formatting Rule” dialog box using the same steps as mentioned above.
• Now, select the new condition again with the value and then click on the “Format” button to select the color and click OK.
  
• At this point, you will get the new additional background color applied to the cells based on the second condition applied.
  

You can now see the two different colors based on the two conditions which we had applied.

And in the same way, you can apply more conditions to the same range like highlighting the background color with the cells equal to zero (0), and in that case, you have to apply the new condition “Equal to” with the value entered as zero (0).

Where you will get the cells with value zero highlighted with the background color which you will select while applying the condition.

Apply Background Color to the Special Cells Using Conditional Formatting

Special cells here refer to the cells that are blank or empty with no data or the cells with formula errors.

1. First, select the cells range or the entire table or the entire sheet if you want to apply background color to the special cells from a particular range of cells or the entire table or entire sheet respectively.
   
2. After that, go to the “Conditional Formatting” and then click on “New Rule” and open the “New Formatting Rule” dialog box.
3. Now, click on the left side drop-down arrow and select the “Blanks” or “Errors” option to apply background color to the blank cells or the cells with errors.
   
4. Once you are done with the selection of the format cell type as “Blank” or any other type based on within which cells you want to apply color then click on the “Format” button and select the color type.
5. In the end, click OK.
   
6. At this point, you will get the cells of your selected range or table or sheets highlighted with the color based on the condition applied.
   

Apply Background Color Using Cell Styles

1. First, select the cells range or the entire table or the entire sheet if you want to apply background color to the special cells from a particular range of cells or the entire table or entire sheet respectively.
2. After that, go to the “Home” tab, then click on the “Cell Styles” icon, and then select the background color style you want to apply.
3. In this example, we have selected the “Neutral” color for the selected table.
   
4. Once you select the color, you will get your selected cells or range or table or sheet applied with that color.
   

In Excel, there are several ways to apply background color to the cell or the entire sheet, but all depends on your requirement.

If you want the color once applied to not change with any change in the cell value, then you can simply use the “Fill Color” or Format Cells” or Cell Styles” option.

But if you want your cell colors dynamic means that color will change automatically with the change in the cell value and based on the conditions applied, you can use the “Conditional Formatting” option in this case.