How to Change the Color of a Worksheet Tab in Excel 2013

Creating an Excel file that is meant to be shared or worked on with others can be a challenging task. Everyone involved may not have the same level of expertise with the program, which can make it difficult to troubleshoot or answer questions.

One helpful way to solve this problem is by color coding. You may be familiar with how to change cell color in Excel 2013, but you can also set tab colors for your worksheet tabs at the bottom of the window.

This can be very helpful when working with workbooks that contain a large number of worksheets, or when explaining how to navigate between worksheets to someone that is new to Excel.

Set the Tab Color for Excel 2013 Worksheets

The steps below are going to change the color of the tab that you select. These changes will not apply to all of your tabs, which will allow you to individually color code your worksheet tabs. You can, however, change multiple worksheet tabs to the same color by holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and selecting all of the tabs that you want to color, then following our steps below.

Step 1: Open the Excel workbook containing the worksheet tabs that you want to color.

Step 2: Locate the worksheet tabs at the bottom of the window, then click the tab that you want to modify.

select the tab to modify

Step 3: Right-click the tab whose color you want to change, click Tab Color, then click the color that you want to use.

click tab color, then select the color for the worksheet tab

Your modified worksheet tab should now visually stand out from the other tabs, allowing you to refer to it as “the red tab”, for example, instead of by the worksheet name.

how to change the tab color of a worksheet in Excel 2013

Now that you know how to change the color of a worksheet tab in Excel 2013, you can use this option to make certain sheets stand out a bit more in your workbooks.

Are you looking for a way to sort your color-coded worksheet? Learn how to sort by cell color in Excel 2013 and take advantage of your color coding.

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