Making your spreadsheet attractive and elegant is not rocket science. Even Excel itself provides many features that help you in making whatever changes you need. Have you ever noticed inactive sheet tabs appear in gray whereas active sheet tabs are in white? At times when you are dealing with multiple datasets and worksheets, it would be difficult to find a specific sheet.
That’s the reason why people often tend to change tab colors. Today, you will get to know how to change tab color in Excel so that you can easily differentiate sheets from a workbook. Moreover, it also helps you in sorting sheets that have multiple data types, calculations, reports, inputs, and visuals. Let’s see how you can do it:
How to Change Tab Color in Excel with a Right-Click?
Using the right-click menu, you can easily make changes in the colors of sheet tabs. By right-clicking on a sheet, multiple options appear in the menu to choose from. Let’s have a look at the complete procedure step-by-step:
- Right-click on a sheet tab in which you need to change the color.
- Choose the Tab Color option given in the menu.
- Select a Color option.
- You will notice the sheet tab color is now changed.
Notice: The displayed color on the tab will appear in a lighter shade than the one you have chosen. Select any other tab and you will see the chosen color appears prominently.
- Furthermore, you can choose other than the Standard Colors or Theme Colors from the More Colors option.
- From the Colors menu, you can choose colors easily as per your needs. It also provides the exact RGB or Hex code used for the color.
How to Use Tab Color from the Home Tab?
By using the above method, you know how to change tab color in Excel easily. However, in case you don’t get what you need by following the above method, here’s another trick. Let’s follow it:
- Open the sheet for which you need to change the tab color.
- Click on the “Format” drop-down menu.
- Now, open the Tab Color option.
- Select the color that you need to apply and click Apply it.
- For a Mac user, the above steps will work as well.
How to Change Tab Color in Excel with a Keyboard Shortcut?
In Excel, you will not find a specific keyboard shortcut to change the tab color. However, still, with a combination of keys, you can execute this function by opening the Tab Color menu. For this you need to follow the steps given below:
- Press the ALT hotkey.
- You will see the ribbon appearing with all the commands used in the ribbon.
- Press ALT + H + O + T to open the Tab Color menu.
- Press ALT to activate the hotkeys.
- Press H to open the Home tab in the ribbon.
- Press O to open the Format command from the Cells menu.
- Press T to open the Tab Color menu.
- Once the Tab Color menu is opened, select the color option with arrow keys.
- Press the ENTER key to confirm the color selection.
- For the More Colors option, you can press the M key.
How to Change Multiple Sheet Tab Colors Simultaneously?
Manually changing the multiple sheet tabs’ color all at once is not an easy thing. It is not an ideal option to change the colors of sheet tabs manually one by one. However, you can do it easily by following the methods given below.
Change Multiple Adjacent worksheet Tab Colors:
Once you select multiple adjacent sheet tabs, the remaining process is given below:
- Choose the first tab.
- Press and hold the SHIFT key.
- Choose the last tab.
- Right-click on the last tab.
- Click on the Tab Color option given in the menu.
- Choose the color for all the selected tabs.
The color of selected tabs has now changed.
How to Change Tab Color in Excel with VBA?
Similar to other functions in Excel, you can automate the tab color selection of sheets by using the VBA macro code. Let’s assume you need to change the tab color of sheets named with a certain prefix. VBA can do it quickly:
- Open the Developer tab.
- Choose the Visual Basic command.
- The visual basic editor will open up.
- Press ALT + F11 shortcut command to open the VBA editor.
- Click on the Insert menu and choose the Module option.
Sub ChangeTabColor() Dim ws As Worksheet For Each ws In ThisWorkbook.Worksheets If Left(ws.Name, 4) = "2021" Then ws.Tab.Color = RGB(0, 176, 80) End If Next ws End Sub
- Paste the above code in the new module.
You will notice the code above loops through every sheet present in the workbook.
Let’s Wrap Up:
In this post, you have learned how to change tab color in Excel with the help of multiple methods. You can try all of the above methods without any hesitation. Each method works effectively, so don’t fret, just keep practicing.
