Window Background Color

[EricG]

I often hide all unused columns to the right of my used area, and unused rows
below. That leaves a blank area in my Excel window where there are no rows
or columns showing. That blank area is colored a medium gray. I would like
to be able to change that background color to something else, but I can't
figure out how. I have tried the Windows Display control panel settings, but
I have not found the right setting to change.

If anyone out there knows the solution, please chime in!

Thanks,

Eric

 

[Patrick Molloy]

FORMAT / STYLE
MODIFY
PATTERNS

 

[EricG]

Patrick,

Thanks for the reply. That only works on cells. The area I'm talking about
is the window background, which seems to be unaffected by the default style.

Eric

 

[minimaster]

Usually that color has the RGB values 192,192,192 and I haven't found
a way to modify it. Not connected somehow to the Excel Color Palette
and not connected to the Windws colors (Appearance settings). A long
time ago I found a vba code snippet how to change this background
color for the MS Access application via some windows API calls, but I
never figured out whether the same can be achieved somehow for the
excel window background. Not a trivial one.

 

[Patrick Molloy]

stumped
I don't think there is a way to do this

 

[EricG]

It's funny how my trivial questions always result in non-trivial solutions!
I think I'll give up and live with the ugly gray background.

You may have seen this approach in Access:

http://www.lebans.com/changemdibackground.htm

 

[Patrick Molloy]

no, its a good question, It would be great if the background could be made
transparent so that the desktop or whatever is beneath the app would show
through.