VBA To Handle White Cell Fill Colors
What This VBA Code Does
If you are a formatting nut like me, you will most likely appreciate an issue I face all too often. Imagine you are taking over someone else’s spreadsheet who doesn’t have a care in the world for formatting and organization and also doesn’t know that you can get a solid white background for your spreadsheet by simply turning off the grid lines (View >> Show >> Gridlines). In an effort to add some order to this disaster of a spreadsheet, you are left going through the tabs and searching for white-filled cells and removing their cell fill or searching for unfilled cells and making them white. Not a real value-add of your time…
Have no fear, I have created some code that will search through all the cells in your selection and fill them with a white color while ignoring cells that are already colored something other than white. The code acts as a toggle between converting cells to white and removing the background of white-filled cells. Enjoy!
VBA Code:
Sub WhiteFill_Toggle()
'PURPOSE: Change empty cell fill colors to white based on selection (Toggle)
'SOURCE: www.TheSpreadsheetGuru.com/the-code-vault
Dim rng As Range
Dim cell As Range
Dim GatherRange As Range
'Test for Empty Filled Cells in User Selection
For Each cell In Selection.Cells
If cell.Interior.ColorIndex = xlNone Then
If GatherRange Is Nothing Then
Set GatherRange = cell
Else
Set GatherRange = Union(GatherRange, cell)
End If
End If
Next cell
'Were any empty filled cells found?
If Not GatherRange Is Nothing Then
'Whiteout all applicable cells
GatherRange.Interior.Color = RGB(255, 255, 255)
Else
'Test for White Fills
For Each cell In Selection.Cells
If cell.Interior.Color = RGB(255, 255, 255) Then
If GatherRange Is Nothing Then
Set GatherRange = cell
Else
Set GatherRange = Union(GatherRange, cell)
End If
End If
Next cell
'Remove White Fills
If Not GatherRange Is Nothing Then
GatherRange.Interior.ColorIndex = xlNone
End If
End If
End SubUsing VBA Code Found On The Internet
Now that you’ve found some VBA code that could potentially solve your Excel automation problem, what do you do with it? If you don’t necessarily want to learn how to code VBA and are just looking for the fastest way to implement this code into your spreadsheet, I wrote an article (with video) that explains how to get the VBA code you’ve found running on your spreadsheet.
Getting Started Automating Excel
Are you new to VBA and not sure where to begin? Check out my quickstart guide to learning VBA. This article won’t overwhelm you with fancy coding jargon, as it provides you with a simplistic and straightforward approach to the basic things I wish I knew when trying to teach myself how to automate tasks in Excel with VBA Macros.
Also, if you haven’t checked out Excel’s latest automation feature called Power Query, I have put together a beginner’s guide for automating with Excel’s Power Query feature as well! This little-known built-in Excel feature allows you to merge and clean data automatically with little to no coding!
How Do I Modify This To Fit My Specific Needs?
Chances are this post did not give you the exact answer you were looking for. We all have different situations and it’s impossible to account for every particular need one might have. That’s why I want to share with you: My Guide to Getting the Solution to your Problems FAST! In this article, I explain the best strategies I have come up with over the years to get quick answers to complex problems in Excel, PowerPoint, VBA, you name it!
I highly recommend that you check this guide out before asking me or anyone else in the comments section to solve your specific problem. I can guarantee that 9 times out of 10, one of my strategies will get you the answer(s) you are needing faster than it will take me to get back to you with a possible solution. I try my best to help everyone out, but sometimes I don’t have time to fit everyone’s questions in (there never seem to be quite enough hours in the day!).
I wish you the best of luck and I hope this tutorial gets you heading in the right direction!
After 10+ years of creating macros and developing add-ins, I've compiled all the hacks I wish I had known years ago!
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Chris Newman
Chris is a finance professional and Excel MVP recognized by Microsoft since 2016. With his expertise, he founded TheSpreadsheetGuru blog to help fellow Excel users, where he shares his vast creative solutions & expertise. In addition, he has developed over 7 widely-used Excel Add-ins that have been embraced by individuals and companies worldwide.