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How to change the color of ActiveX Control button in Excel?

Author Xiaoyang Last modified

In Excel, when you insert a command button, the color of the button is grey by default. But sometimes, you need to change the grey color to a beautiful color to make the worksheet more professional. Today, I can introduce you some quick tricks to change the color of the button in Excel.

Change the color of ActiveX Control button with changing the properties
Change the color of ActiveX Control button with VBA code

Change the color of ActiveX Control button with changing the properties

Normally, in Excel, there are two types of button, one is Form Control button and the other is ActiveX Control button. If the button is Form Control button, you can just change the font color of it, but don’t change the background color. You just can change the back color of the ActiveX Control button. Please do as this:

1. Insert the ActiveX Control button by clicking Developer > Insert, and select Command Button under ActiveX Controls section, see screenshot:

select Command Button from Developer tab

Note: If the Developer tab doesn't show in the ribbon, you can click File > Option > Customize Ribbon, then check Developer in the right pane to display the Developer tab.

2. Then drag the mouse to draw a button.

drag to draw a button

3. And then select the button and right click, choose Properties from the context menu, and in the popped out Properties dialog, click Alphabetic tab, and then click BackColor drop down list to choose one color you like, see screenshots:

choose Properties from the context menu arrow right set options in the Properties dialog

4. Then close the dialog, and the color of your command button has been changed as follows:

the color of the command button is changed

5. At last, quit the Design Mode by clicking Developer > Design Mode to make the button use normally.

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Change the color of ActiveX Control button with VBA code

As we can see, Excel provides a few of colors in the Properties dialog box for us to apply. With the following simple VBA code, there are lots of colors to be chosen.

1. Insert a command button, and right click, then choose View Code from the context menu, see screenshot:

choose View Code from the context menu

2. Then a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window will display, see screenshot:

a Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window will display

3. And then copy and paste this simple code script: CommandButton1.BackColor = 12713921 into the window between the two code, see screenshot:

copy and paste the code into the module

Note: In the above code script, the CommandButton1 is the name of your button, and the number 12713921 is the MS-Accessnumber, they are all variable, you can change them as your need.

4. Then press F5 key to run this code, and your button color has been changed at once.

run the code to change the button color

Tip: You can go to this website: http://www.endprod.com/colors/ to view more MS-Access number color values, there are maybe hundreds of colors you can use. After opening the website, you just need to choose a color and copy the corresponding number under MSAccess herder, then replace the above number in the code script.

screenshot of color code

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