Datasheet

Previewing Your Formatting Live — Soliciting Help 17
The following are characteristics of theme colors:
• The top row in a color picker displays the base theme colors, and the
next five rows display various tints and shades of the base colors.
Below the theme colors are standard colors that do not change if the
theme is changed. If you want to apply specific formatting that doesn’t
change after you change the theme, use a standard color.
• The first four columns of colors on the picker (from the left) are
intended for text and background use. These colors are designed so
that light text always shows well on a dark background, and vice versa.
• The next six columns of colors are used for accents. Most of the theme-
style galleries in Excel make extensive use of accent colors.
The two colors that are not displayed on the color pickers are used for
hyperlinks (not discussed in this book).
✓ Theme effect: Theme effects apply to graphic elements such as charts and
shapes and include three levels of styles for outlines, fills, and special
effects. Special effects include shadow, glow, bevel, and reflection.
You can change the theme in a workbook by clicking the Themes button on the
Ribbon’s Page Layout tab and selecting a new theme from the gallery that
appears.
Remember: The Microsoft Office applications — Excel 2010, Word 2010,
PowerPoint 2010, and Access 2010 — share the same themes. If you create
reports that combine elements from each application, your reports will have a
consistent look if you use a common theme.
Soliciting Help
With so many features and options available in Excel, it isn’t unusual to get
stuck once in a while. Fortunately, Excel provides the following methods for
getting help easily:
✓ SuperTips: Standard ScreenTips (also called ToolTips), which have been
available in Excel (and many other Windows applications) for some time,
provide textual context to commands. After hovering your mouse pointer
over a command having a standard ScreenTip, Excel displays the action of
the command using either a single word (such as Paste) or a brief phrase
(such as Increase Font Size). A standard ScreenTip helps to decipher the
meaning of a command button, for example, when the button has no asso-
ciated text and the command meaning is unclear from the button icon.
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