Excel formula to get cell color [duplicate]

Question

I would like to know if we can find out the Color of the CELL with the help of any inline formula (without using any macros)

I'm using Home User Office package 2010.

Answer 1

As commented, just in case the link I posted there broke, try this:

Add a Name(any valid name) in Excel's Name Manager under Formula tab in the Ribbon.
Then assign a formula using GET.CELL function.

=GET.CELL(63,INDIRECT("rc",FALSE))

63 stands for backcolor.
Let's say we name it Background so in any cell with color type:

=Background

Result:

Notice that Cells A2, A3 and A4 returns 3, 4, and 5 respectively which equates to the cells background color index. HTH.
BTW, here's a link on Excel's Color Index

Answer 2

Color is not data.

The Get.cell technique has flaws.

1. It does not update as soon as the cell color changes, but only when the cell (or the sheet) is recalculated.
2. It does not have sufficient numbers for the millions of colors that are available in modern Excel. See the screenshot and notice how the different intensities of yellow or purple all have the same number.

That does not surprise, since the Get.cell uses an old XML command, i.e. a command from the macro language Excel used before VBA was introduced. At that time, Excel colors were limited to less than 60.

Again: Color is not data.

If you want to color-code your cells, use conditional formatting based on the cell values or based on rules that can be expressed with logical formulas. The logic that leads to conditional formatting can also be used in other places to report on the data, regardless of the color value of the cell.

Answer 3

No, you can only get to the interior color of a cell by using a Macro. I am afraid. It's really easy to do (cell.interior.color) so unless you have a requirement that restricts you from using VBA, I say go for it.

Answer 4

Anticipating that I already had the answer, which is that there is no built-in worksheet function that returns the background color of a cell, I decided to review this article, in case I was wrong. I was amused to notice a citation to the very same MVP article that I used in the course of my ongoing research into colors in Microsoft Excel.

While I agree that, in the purest sense, color is not data, it is meta-data, and it has uses as such. To that end, I shall attempt to develop a function that returns the color of a cell. If I succeed, I plan to put it into an add-in, so that I can use it in any workbook, where it will join a growing legion of other functions that I think Microsoft left out of the product.

Regardless, IMO, the ColorIndex property is virtually useless, since there is essentially no connection between color indexes and the colors that can be selected in the standard foreground and background color pickers. See Color Combinations: Working with Colors in Microsoft Office and the associated binary workbook, Color_Combinations Workbook.