Sachin Tendulkar is undoubtedly the best cricketers to play One Day International Cricket. He is a source of inspiration and joy for me and many others. So, naturally I was jumping with joy when I heard that he scored the highest ever runs in a single match on 24th of Feb. He scored 200 runs (first ever double century in one day cricket), batted for all the 50 overs and remained not out. A true symbol of passion and excellence. [his cricinfo profile, commentary on 200 score]
But what has all this got to do with Excel? Well, some of you know that I am fan of Sachin. Last time he became the highest scorer in test cricket, we celebrated that with a dashboard of test cricket statistics. Similarly, now too, I have prepared an info-graphic poster on Sachin showcasing his achievements. See it below,
[if the below image is kind of messed up, click here to see it in full]
Behind the poster:
I have made this poster in Excel 2010 (it has sparklines, that is why). The data is from Cricinfo’s statsguru page.
Download the original poster excel file (you need Excel 2007 or above to play with this).
Also, if you want to see the entire poster as one image click here.
Congratulate Sachin
Sachin is a hero in my world. He has been inspiring me to do better for the last 20 years. I am sure some of you are inspired by his passion, commitment and excellence in the Sport of Cricket. Join me and congratulate him.
Previous Visualization Projects
From time to time, I indulge in some fun visualization projects where we push the limits of Excel to do something awesome. Some of the earlier attempts are,
Flu trends chart in Excel | History of Excel – a timeline | Visualizing Olympic Medals since 1900.
17 Responses to “Custom Number Formats – Colors”
You are right, Chandoo. I was playing with the colour numbers last week and some of them don't appear different from each other. Others are totally different from yours.
@Duncan
Each version of Excel, post 2003, renders colors slightly differently
Different language versions may also have different default color palettes
Hello in french
excel 2010
colo1 = couleur1 = black
[couleur1]; [couleur2]; etc..
@Hui, thank you very much again for this great post.
However - under Excel 2007, Hungarian version your solution does not work with color names. I've tried both English and Hungarian names, but drops an error message "not valid formats"
Do you have any idea how to solve this issue?
thanks in advance
@Andras
Without a Hungarian version of Excel 2003 I don't think I can assist
Have you tried using the colour numbers? I couldn't get the names to work (despite using an english version of excel). but it did work with the numbers though. I left out the "u" and was easily able to produce burgundy using [color9]
Here a possible solution: find an English version of Excel, write there the formats using English names, then open the file in the Hungarian version and see the translation.
In Excel 2007 I can't get the colour names to work e.g Sea Green but the numbers do e.g color3 - colour3 does not work so I must bow to the country that has stolen my language (ha ha!)
Hey chandoo, nice Tip!
Wouldn't be easier just apply some conditional formatting for negative numbers and another for positive numbers? Or there's some cases that you can't do that?
Unfortunately the TEXT function doesn't color the cell as number formatting does.
Hi Hui,
Great post Sir, love the new way of formatting with color numbers.
I am using 2007, and it leads me to the last color number 56.
Thanks Hui.
[…] explains how to set up custom number formats with a wide array of […]
Thanks Hui - works a treat!
Thank you, very helpful.
Trying to figure out if it is possible to apply color only to a part of the cell?
E.g. I have a value formatted as Accounting with a currency symbol.
Those I find somewhat distracting though necessary. If I could make them less obtrusive by coloring them gray while the number would stay black, that would be great. Tried tinkering with the format string, but didn't get the desired result. Single color for complete cell value works, but coloring just part of it could not be achieved. Maybe somebody managed that?
Exactly what I was looking for - thank you!
colour in the Australian doesn't work - we have to go American and no problem.
I always thought is was 56 colours notice you have 57. Cool.
thanks
Analir Pisani
Customised Microsoft Office Training Specialist
Sydney - Australia
http://www.azsolutions.com.au
Thank You!