How to Fix Font Color Not Changing on Microsoft Excel

Can’t figure out why the font color is not changing on Microsoft Excel?

We often see Excel sheets to be plain and dull to look at since they just contain numbers and data. Although you might be already used to it if you work with Excel a lot of times, there are some ways to make your workbook organized and presentable. 

Besides crunching numbers and organizing them in cells and columns, you can also change the look of your worksheet. 

Changing the font color in your worksheet can make a lot of difference. This can make your data set much more presentable and easier to look at. You can also assign various font colors to mark different data types in Excel. 

Unfortunately, some users reported that they are unable to change the font color on their workbooks. 

If you are among these users, you have come to the right place. 

Today, we will show you what to do if the font color in your workbook is not changing on Microsoft Excel. 

Let’s dive right in!

1. Restart Your System. 

Before changing your configurations, we recommend restarting your computer first if you cannot change the font color on Microsoft Excel. This should reload Excel’s resources and eliminate temporary issues that occurred during runtime. 

Check out the guide below to reboot your computer: 

1. First, press the Windows key on your keyboard to open the Start Menu. 
2. After that, access the Power Options tab. 
3. Lastly, choose Restart and wait for your system to reboot. 

Once done, go back to Microsoft Excel and check if the problem is solved. 

2. Turn Off Hardware Acceleration. 

One of the first things you should do if you can’t change the font color on Microsoft Excel is to disable hardware acceleration. While this feature helps improve performance, it can also pose issues in some systems. 

Here’s how you can disable hardware acceleration: 

1. On Microsoft Excel, navigate to File > Options. 
2. Next, access the Advanced tab. 
3. Finally, check the Disable Hardware Graphics Acceleration option. 

Once done, relaunch Microsoft Excel and check if the problem is solved. 

3. Clear Conditional Formatting. 

Conditional formatting is a feature that allows users to automatically apply formatting like colors, icons, and data bars to one or more cells in their worksheet based on the cell value. If you have this set in Excel, you won’t be able to manually change the font color of affected cells. 

To address this problem, clear any conditional formatting you have on the cell that you want to change the font color. 

4. Disable Excel Protection. 

Microsoft Excel has a feature that allows users to enable protection on their worksheets. When this feature is active, you won’t be able to change any data or formatting in the Excel file accessed. 

If you can’t change the font color on Microsoft Excel, see if protection is enabled on the file. Here’s what you need to do: 

1. First, access the Review tab in Microsoft Excel. 
2. After that, click on the Unprotect Sheet option. 
3. Lastly, relaunch the app. 

Go back to your file and check if you can now change the font color. 

5. Update Microsoft Excel. 

If none of the solutions above worked, it might indicate a problem with the version of Excel you are running. To rule this out, we recommend updating Microsoft Excel to the latest version to patch bugs and other issues. 

Here’s how you can update Microsoft Excel: 

1. First, launch Microsoft Excel on your computer. 
2. After that, click on File > Accounts. 
3. Lastly, access the Update Options tab and click on Update Now or Enable Updates. 

Once done, restart Microsoft Excel and check if the problem is solved. 

That brings us to the end of our guide on what to do if the font color is not changing on Microsoft Excel. For your questions and other concerns, please voice them in the comment section, and we’ll do our best to help. 

If this guide helped you, please share it. 🙂