changing font color for new text

D

DanDavis

i have column of information. the font color is currently black. When i
update the date within the column, i want just the cells i've updated to show
in a different font color. How can i do this?

Thanks, Dan
 
D

David McRitchie

Hi Dan,

Since they are dates, it seems one way would be to use
Conditional Formatting to check the date value in the column
to see if it is higher than a particular date.
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/condfmt.htm

Another way would be to use a Change Event macro
anything you change in Column A will have it's font, and it's interior
color changed. To reset change colors, double-click on cell A1.
Pasting from another cell will not cause the Change Event macro
to trigger, but manually entering a value will trigger the Change Event.

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/event.htm#chg010

Right click on the sheet tab, view code, insert the following code

Private Sub Worksheet_BeforeDoubleClick(ByVal Target As Range, Cancel As Boolean)
'reset change indications by double-clicking on cell A1
Cancel = True 'get out of edit mode
If Target.Address <> "$A$1" Then Exit Sub
Application.EnableEvents = False 'should be part of Change macro
Target.EntireColumn.Font.ColorIndex = xlColorIndexAutomatic
Target.EntireColumn.Interior.ColorIndex = xlNone
Application.EnableEvents = True 'should be part of Change macro
End Sub

Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
If Target.Column <> 1 Then Exit Sub 'only change if Column A
Application.EnableEvents = False 'should be part of Change macro
Target.Font.ColorIndex = 39
Target.Interior.ColorIndex = 19
Application.EnableEvents = True 'should be part of Change macro
End Sub

'For a different choice of color see
' http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/colors.htm

If your cell formatting includes a font color that font color will override
assigning a font color. So the cell background (interior color) not only
shows up better but may be necessary for a distinction, but I presented
a macro and you would customize it any way you want. In fact as a
worksheet event macro it would only affect the one worksheet, so
customization for the worksheet is centainly expected.
i.e. a typical number format negatives in Red 0.00_);[Red](0.00)

If you go with Conditional Formatting, then C.F. coloring overrides
other coloring options.

You can use Track Change, but I find the restrictions of shared workbooks
and the all or nothing approach very annoying, but you can read about that
(my opinions anyway) at http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/highlite.htm
 
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