How to change the font color in Excel

In this lesson we'll look at how to change the font color.

Let's take a look.

Let's continue with our menu project and add some font colors. Let's make the headings one color and the menu items another.

Even though we want the headings to be a different color, it will be easiest if we apply one color to the entire worksheet, and then come back and work on the headings separately. As always, start by selecting the cells to format.

The easiest way to apply font color is to use the Font color menu on the home tab of the ribbon. Click once to open the menu, then release the mouse button to browse colors.

This menu shows all of the available colors in the currently selected color scheme. We'll look at how to change these colors in an upcoming lesson.

To preview a color, just hover over a color square. Excel will show a preview of this color applied. To leave the Font color menu without applying a color, just press the Escape key.

Let's set the color of all text to a dark gray. Now, let's try green for the headings.

If the color you've selected isn't quite right, you can easily make adjustments by using the "More Colors" option at the bottom of the Font color menu.

Let's make the green color darker. Switch from the Standard tab to the Custom tab, and make adjustments as needed. In this case, we can just drag the slider down to get a darker green.

Note that when you've customized a color, it will automatically show up in the Font Color menu under Recent Colors. When you want to use a customized color again, you can find it here. Also note that the font color button remembers the last color you used. When you click it again, Excel will apply that color.