Excel if color macro

Checking a Row for a Background Color

Thank you for these great answers!

I especially liked astef’s answer,

Function GetFillColor(Rng As Range) As Long
    GetFillColor = Rng.Interior.ColorIndex
End Function

which checks for a cell’s background color by writing the above macro (alt+f11 to open macros), and I used that function to easily create a version of this that checks if a range of three cells in the row have a background color of yellow.

Now this might be performant or not, but it’s a simple way to write the formula. This is the formula in the status column, which will check the other columns selected for any cells with yellow background, using the GetFillColor macro from astef’s answer.

=IF(OR(GetFillColor([@Fees])=6,
GetFillColor([@Interest])=6,
GetFillColor([@Borrowing])=6),
 "yellow", "none")

This will return yellow to the cell if there is any yellow background (color index 6), in the cells in the GetFillColor(cell) formulas. Another advantage of writing the GetFillColor() macro is that you can use it to find what color it is you are searching for, by simply selecting an empty cell and writing =GetFillColor(your_cell) where your cell is the cell with the color of which you want the color index number.

To change this to your liking, change the GetFillColor() arguments in the =IF(OR formula above to be the cells in which might be the color, and change the 6 to any color index number you want to find, and change the two «» arguments at the end to any messages you want. The first is printed if the color is found, the second if not. Remember you can use the GetFillColor macro to return the color of any cell you like, in order to know what color index to use in the formulas.

Hope it helps. I’m open to improvement comments.

I have created a spreadsheet that has multiple cells that go red based on conditional formatting. I have another sheet that has hyperlink cells to the other sheets, can I get these hyperlink cells to go red if any of the cells on the hyperlinked sheet is red 

Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
Me.Range(«B4»).Interior.Color = Me.Range(«A1»).DisplayFormat.Interior.Color
End Sub

this works on the same sheet but as soon as you introduce multiple cells it turns black 

Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
Me.Range(«B4»).Interior.Color = Me.Range(«A1:B1:C1»).DisplayFormat.Interior.Color
End Sub

or cells from another sheet it fails error code 1004

Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
Me.Range(«B4»).Interior.Color = Me.Range(«Greenbrook!$C$3»).DisplayFormat.Interior.Color
End Sub

I tried this across sheet, this is for a single cell, I’m hoping to be able to look at all cells on the said sheet and show red if any cell on the other sheet are red

Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007 and 2010. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Colors in an IF Function.

Steve would like to create an IF statement (using the worksheet function) based on the color of a cell. For example, if A1 has a green fill, he wants to return the word «go», if it has a red fill, he wants to return the word «stop», and if it is any other color return the word «neither». Steve prefers to not use a macro to do this.

Unfortunately, there is no way to acceptably accomplish this task without using macros, in one form or another. The closest non-macro solution is to create a name that determines colors, in this manner:

1. Select cell A1.
2. Click Insert | Name | Define. Excel displays the Define Name dialog box.
3. Use a name such as «mycolor» (without the quote marks).
4. In the Refers To box, enter the following, as a single line:

     =IF(GET.CELL(38,Sheet1!A1)=10,"GO",IF(GET.CELL(38,Sheet1!A1)
     =3,"Stop","Neither"))

5. Click OK.

With this name defined, you can, in any cell, enter the following:

=mycolor

The result is that you will see text based upon the color of the cell in which you place this formula. The drawback to this approach, of course, is that it doesn’t allow you to reference cells other than the one in which the formula is placed.

The solution, then, is to use a user-defined function, which is (by definition) a macro. The macro can check the color with which a cell is filled and then return a value. For instance, the following example returns one of the three words, based on the color in a target cell:

Function CheckColor1(range)
    If range.Interior.Color = RGB(256, 0, 0) Then
        CheckColor1 = "Stop"
    ElseIf range.Interior.Color = RGB(0, 256, 0) Then
        CheckColor1 = "Go"
    Else
        CheckColor1 = "Neither"
    End If
End Function

This macro evaluates the RGB values of the colors in a cell, and returns a string based on those values. You could use the function in a cell in this manner:

=CheckColor1(B5)

If you prefer to check index colors instead of RGB colors, then the following variation will work:

Function CheckColor2(range)
    If range.Interior.ColorIndex = 3 Then
        CheckColor2 = "Stop"
    ElseIf range.Interior.ColorIndex = 4 Then
        CheckColor2 = "Go"
    Else
        CheckColor2 = "Neither"
    End If
End Function

Whether you are using the RGB approach or the color index approach, you’ll want to check to make sure that the values used in the macros reflect the actual values used for the colors in the cells you are testing. In other words, Excel allows you to use different shades of green and red, so you’ll want to make sure that the RGB values and color index values used in the macros match those used by the color shades in your cells.

One way you can do this is to use a very simple macro that does nothing but return a color index value:

Function GetFillColor(Rng As Range) As Long
    GetFillColor = Rng.Interior.ColorIndex
End Function

Now, in your worksheet, you can use the following:

=GetFillColor(B5)

The result is the color index value of cell B5 is displayed. Assuming that cell B5 is formatted using one of the colors you expect (red or green), you can plug the index value back into the earlier macros to get the desired results. You could simply skip that step, however, and rely on the value returned by GetFillColor to put together an IF formula, in this manner:

=IF(GetFillColor(B5)=4,"Go", IF(GetFillColor(B5)=3,"Stop", "Neither"))

You’ll want to keep in mind that these functions (whether you look at the RGB color values or the color index values) examine the explicit formatting of a cell. They don’t take into account any implicit formatting, such as that applied through conditional formatting.

For some other good ideas, formulas, and functions on working with colors, refer to this page at Chip Pearson’s website:

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/colors.aspx

Author Bio

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen…