Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Office 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Colors and Fonts for Worksheet Tabs.
Excel is quite configurable in how information appears on your screen. At some time, you may want to change the appearance of the worksheet tabs at the bottom of your workbook. Unfortunately, Excel allows very little customization of the way worksheet tabs are presented.
If you want to change the font used in a worksheet tab, you need to change the fonts used by Windows (not Excel) to displays information. You can use the Windows Control Panel to modify the appearance of information within your system. Understand, however, that such changes affect all programs running on your system, not just Excel.
If you want to change the color used to display a worksheet tab, you can follow these steps:
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (9702) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Office 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Colors and Fonts for Worksheet Tabs.
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2014-06-03 07:22:24
Bryan
Isn't feeling sorry for someone acting superior to them?
At any rate, this tip IS trivial, even if you've never seen the information within it before. It's two clicks (three if you like to click on the fly-out menus). What would take this tip from trivial to informative is a couple of screen shots showing what the whole procedure actually looks like.
2014-06-03 03:47:37
Chris McGee
I agree with you Tony.I too did not know how to change the tab colour.
I feel sorry for people who feel they have to prove their superiority. It is sad that they have nothing better to do than look for things to sneer at.
2014-06-02 03:12:00
Tony Davis
Whilst I agree re changing the font setting in windows is overkill (to me), I disagree with your comment on the triviality of any tip.
I consider myself a fairly experienced user of Excel but there are things I don't know - changing the colour of the tab was one of them.
Just because you know something and/or consider it trivial doesn't mean the rest of the world agrees.
2014-05-31 19:43:46
Christopher Cain
Changing the colour of a tab is a bit obvious and trivial to actually be a tip!
I can't imagine anyone would think changing the font used by windows by changing the font setting in the windows control panel was worth all the trouble just to change the font used in an Excel Tab.
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Office 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: 
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