Custom Number Formats – Colors

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In the past I have written a number of posts on the use of Custom Number formats including

Selective Chart Axis Formats
Custom Chart Axis Formats (Part 2)

A technique to quickly develop custom number formats

Chandoo has written about Custom Number Formats in:

Custom cell formatting in Excel a few tips tricks

 

Color Modifier

As part of these techniques you have the option to set the colors using the [Color] modifier

You can use a Custom format of: $#,##0;[Red]-$#,##0

10 Dollars will be displayed as $10
-10 Dollars will be displayed as -$10

Colors available include Red, Blue, Green, Yellow

However there is a much larger color palette available

Anybody who has or is still using Excel 2003 or prior will have a color picker which looks like this:

2003 Color Picker 2

Well these 56 colors are all available and not just in Excel 95-2003 but in All Excel versions up to and  including Excel 2013.

We have two methods to access these colors:

1. Using the Colors Name or

2. Using a Color Number.

Color Name

In Excel 95-2003 you can Right Click on a cell and change the Font or the Fill color

Simply select a color like below:

2003 Color Picker3

Note that a Green Color has been selected, the Dialog shows the name of the Color as Sea Green

To save you opening an early version of Excel here are all the colors listed above:

Top Row
Black, Brown, Olive Green, Dark Green, Dark Teal, Dark Blue, Indigo, Grey-80%
2nd Row
Dark Red, Orange, dark yellow, Green, Teal, Blue, Blue-Grey, Grey-50%
3rd Row
Red, Light Orange, Lime, Sea Green, Aqua, Light Blue, Violet, Grey-40%
4th Row
Pink, Gold, Yellow, Bright Green, Turquoise, Sky Blue, Plum, Grey-25%
5th Row
Rose, Tan, Light Yellow, Light Green, Light Turquoise, Pale Blue, Lavender, White
6th Row
Periwinkle, Plum, Ivory, Light Turquoise, Dark Purple, Coral, Ocean Blue, Ice Blue
Bottom Row
Dark Blue, Pink, Yellow, Turquoise, Violet, dark Red, Teal, Blue

To use these use the format $#,##0;[Color Name]-$#,##0

eg: [Blue Grey]$#,##0;[Sea Green]-$#,##0

This will display Ten Dollars as $10 and Negative Ten Dollars as -$10

Color Number

The Alternative method is to use a Custom Number Format and using the Color Number modifier like [Color Number]$#,##0;[Color Number]-$#,##0

[Color4]$#,##0;[Color3]-$#,##0

This will display Ten Dollars as $10 and Negative Ten Dollars as -$10

Once again to save you trialing each color you can see the effects of each color on a white and Black background below:

Color Numbers

Warnings:

I haven’t tested it but I am sure the Color Names will be different in different language versions of Excel.

I haven’t tested these techniques on a Mac version of Excel but I am pretty sure these techniques should work.

Forward compatibility should be ok, but can’t be guaranteed.

 

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19 Responses to “Free Invoice Template using Excel – Download”

  1. Doug H says:

    Nice post! Invoicing for the small biz or solo entrepreneur is something I see a lot of interest in. Also there are great templates from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates

  2. Abhay says:

    This is awesome.

    I would need a little more. e.g. say I generate a Inv. # 1 with all the details. Once done I can click a button all the relevant details gets stored in some table. Further, when i generate a new invoice those details gets stored in same table but just below the previous invoice.

    Is their a way to do this?

  3. Hui... says:

    Daily dose of Excel held a competition in 2005 for this same topic
    It obtained 9 solutions which are shown:
    http://dailydoseofexcel.com/archives/2005/10/27/invoice-app-the-results/

  4. parimal says:

    How can i removed Dollar Sign, As want to use this in india.
    Please reply.

  5. parimal says:

    Also if possible then can i use Indian Rupee Sign and how?

  6. Gaurang Mhatre says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    Thanks for sharing this invoice template, Let me tell you this template will definitely help me since I got a process to handle where this invoice piece comes. Just a small doubt, can we store all the invoice details in PRODUCT & SERVICES sheet. So that whenever I select an invoice number from invoice sheet I can take print out and I can share it as well. Can we do that?? Since I will be dealing with this on monthly basis.
    It would be great if you can help me with this.

    Thanks in advance for your help!

    Regards,
    Gaurang Mhatre

  7. shrikant says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    I was thinking learning excel is quite tuff task but your blog proved me wrong. You made it very interesting. Thank you. Also the template you have provided for Invoice is very helpful to us.

  8. AKIN KARAMAN says:

    Thanks thanks thanks.. Very helpful. 🙂

  9. Trevor Gordon says:

    Hi i love the speadsheet but would like to ask how do i get it to add the description into the invoice as well

  10. Anuj says:

    Hi Randy, I tried to download one of your link "https://www.dropbox.com/s/2yvo0o2tgq9quhe/Medical_Massage_and_Salon_Application-Free.xlsm" However, i found the link unavailable. Can you please help me get the new link or can you please send this VBA file on my Email-ID.

  11. Kapil says:

    Hi, is there any chance that this can work with the "Products & Service" sheet outside of the Invoice sheet. I create multiple invoice files for the numerous clients. Updating the product sheet for each of them maybe a task. Hence, I want to create a MASTER FILE from which data can be picked up without having to insert new data in each of the invoice files.
    Possible? Or am I asking for the moon 😉

  12. Kadr Leyn says:

    Thank you so much for tutorial.
    This example can be reviewed for the example of the advanced invoice that made with excel userform :https://youtu.be/Qr-4of-38DI

  13. Trevor Gordon says:

    Good Day
    i love this template may i ask if it could be modified to have the following
    when you lookup a item code in the next column to the right it brings up the description then the quantity, unit cost, discount and then total otherwise i love the template

    Item Code Description Quantity Unit Cost Discount Total

  14. Denise Konopka says:

    When creating an Invoice template in Excel are you able to utilize the auto row height and wrap feature when the cell is a merged cell? I need to have a number of cells merged together to allow for enough space to type in the description of work performed (lets say cells A-D are merged in each row) however it seems that I am unable to utilize the auto format feature. To work around this I have to manually increase the row height after each entry. Is there a better solution for this? Thank you!

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