When you work in Microsoft Excel, it’s easy to forget that spreadsheets can be stylish. Plus, it’s often useful to color-code certain cells to help classify data or call out key details. By filling cells in Excel, you can do exactly that. It’s a fast, colorful way to style your spreadsheets. Let’s learn how to fill cells in Microsoft Excel.
How to Fill Cells in Excel
Let’s imagine a simple data layout with multiple columns arranged in your Excel spreadsheet. This data has column headers in the first row, followed by supporting data just below. A good style technique is to fill the header cells to call out the words inside.
To fill cells in Excel, begin by clicking on one or more cells to select them. You can multi-select with the Command key (Control on Windows) by holding it down and clicking on multiple cells. This will let you apply the same fill effect to all of the cells selected. Keep in mind, if you want different colors in different cells, you’ll need to click on them individually.
With one or more cells selected, navigate to the Home tab. You’ll find this on Excel’s ribbon, the list of menus and options across the top of your screen. Near the left side, you’ll see the Font group. Look for the icon showing a small paint bucket.
This is the Fill Color dropdown. Click the arrow beside it, and watch as a color chooser menu appears. From it, you can pick from a vast array of options. You can click one of the colorful thumbnails to apply it, or you can click More Colors to choose from a color wheel.
Once you’ve made your selection, click the color to choose it. Excel will apply the chosen color to the cells that you have selected.
As you can see, it’s incredibly easy to fill cells in Excel. This is a great way to highlight values quickly.
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