Excel Problem

[Greedyfly]

Hello,

I wonder if someone ca help me. I have an Excel sheet which has been updated daily for years. Some boxes the text is to be black and some red. Recently in some boxes the text auto changes to red and will not allow me to change it to black, if it allows the change I save but it just reverts back to red.

Is it something I have done? How would I go about fixing it? I cannot start this excel sheet again as it stores valuable data that is updated daily.

Thanks for your help

GF

[dr b]

What is in the cells (numbers or text)? What is in the cells that are getting changed to red?

[chelle7272]

Sounds like it is in the cell formatting - what;s in the cells which are changed?

[stoofur]

You may have conditional formatting set in that cell. If you click on Conditional Formatting and go down to manage rules you may see a formula there with conditions to set different colours depending upon the data entered.

[barmy]

It depends on how you enter the red or black text. Are these numbers with conditional formatting? If text how do you change the colours? Are you copying cells across to increase the timescales, column at a time?

Lots of questions but each answer would direct us to a different solution.

[Greedyfly]

Both Numbers and text. Some boxes with text some with just numbers. I do not have the option to select conditional formatting for some reason. Thanks

[dr b]

What sort of text/number is supposed to be black? or red? is it an equation or just something typed into the cell? There just isn't enough info here to diagnose the problem; may not be possible without actually seeing the spreadsheet.

[Wak]

In Open Office, when you format CELLS there is a box you can tick to make negative numbers/values red. I'm sure Excel must have a similar thing somewhere? Would that help to explain the choice of colours?

[Old_Geezer]

Check the formatting for the cell (conditional or otherwise). One can do a bit of colour manipulation in the normal 'number' tab and category option.

[Greedyfly]

It is something typed into the cell. Basically on a daily basis I am given updates which I need to enter onto the sheet, replacing the original text or numbers. I do this by just overwriting what is in there but for some reason very recently it has taken upon itself to colour things how it likes. So some are red and some are black. The whole idea of the sheet is to be able to mark the relevant data black or red not for it to choose itseflf. Being a complete Excel novice I have no idea how to fix this.

[bibblebub]

Conditional formatting ?

Click on one of the cells that has the problem then go to the Home tab in the ribbon and halfway across is the Conditional Formatting drop down menu, at the bottom of which is the Manage Rules option - select that and any conditional formatting for the selected cell should be displayed.

(That's how it's done in Excel 2010, don't know about earlier versions)

[bibblebub]

sorry - just noticed that conditional formatting was suggested earlier

[dr b]

Here's a thought: Under Excel options. go to Advanced options, and under "Editing" - is "Extend data range formats and formulas" checked?

Here's what Excel help says about that option: Select to automatically format new items added to the end of a list to match the format of the rest of the list. Formulas that are repeated in every row are also copied. To be extended, formats and formulas must appear in at least three of the five last rows preceding the new row.

What happens if you uncheck this box?

[Prudie]

I had this problem at work recently and had to ask the Excel gurus in Finance to help. It was something to do with the 'Format painter' tool.

[Ellipsis]

Give us some examples of values that are coming out red, and other values that are coming out black.