Excel cell turns black whilst entering data

Anonymous
2013-01-15T11:11:35+00:00

Hi,

There's a document that's used by some people in the office and whenever they try to enter data into it the cell turns black while they're doing it and they can't see what they've typed until they click off it. These documents are something to do with Sage and not something they've created and if they make a new sheet within them they can edit cells without issue. I'm sure it's just some setting somewhere but could someone please enlighten me as to what it might be?

Thanks

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

42 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2013-01-15T11:22:09+00:00

    There may be some conditional formatting on this cell/sheet. Go to Condtitonal formatting Tab from Home Tab.

    Click on clear rules/Clear rules from sheet.

    If it doesn't work then try to change the fill and font color from formatting tab.

    Was this answer helpful?

    100+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2017-09-29T18:36:32+00:00

    OK, here's a work-around.    change your view from page layout to normal.

    Was this answer helpful?

    90+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2013-01-29T09:34:06+00:00

    Hi, thanks for the help. I've not visited the client again until today and I had a brainwave this morning. I couldn't change the formatting because she had filled in a lot of the cells manually and changing the font from black to white wouldn't help because the cells are white most of the time, it's only when they're being edited that they are unreadable.

    Anyway, all I did was to right click the individual sheets in the document and then "Move or Copy..." and copy them to a new workbook. It removed the black background thing and left everything else intact.

    Thanks again.

    Was this answer helpful?

    40+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2013-01-28T09:01:19+00:00

    Is there some way I can edit the Excel file to just use white instead of black for the 'Automatic' colour?

    Select entire sheet and go to format/cells and there try to change the color of font from black to white, also try to change the color of fill.

    Did you try it or there is no option to change the font/fill color while working in this file.

    Was this answer helpful?

    20+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2017-12-14T12:50:54+00:00

    I just started having this problem today also.  Not sure why.  Maybe an update bug?

    Same here--started with the last update.  i even called microsoft support.  They basically uninstalled and reinstalled the programs and it worked for a few days but now it's doing it again.    it's extremely frustrating.

    I had the same problem (cell colour Blacks as editing the cell) but managed to solve it by highlighting the whole spreadsheet and clicking on No Fill in the cell fill colour dialogue box

    Was this answer helpful?

    10+ people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments