XL2000: Using ColorIndex Property to Set Color of Borders Results in Unexpected Behavior (213688)

WORKAROUND

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To work around this issue, use the following macros to specify a color for the borders of a cell or a range of cells.

Left, Right, Top, and Bottom Borders

To use the ColorIndex property for these types of borders, set the ColorIndex property to the value that you want; for example:

ActiveCell.Borders(xlEdgeLeft).ColorIndex = 2
ActiveCell.Borders(xlEdgeRight).ColorIndex = 3
ActiveCell.Borders(xlEdgeTop).ColorIndex = 4
ActiveCell.Borders(xlEdgeBottom).ColorIndex = 5

You can set all four borders to the same value by using a line of code similar to the following:

ActiveCell.Borders.ColorIndex = 6

Inside Vertical and Inside Horizontal Borders

To use the ColorIndex property for these types of borders, set the ColorIndex property for the appropriate constant to the correct value; for example:

Selection.Borders(xlInsideVertical).ColorIndex = 7
Selection.Borders(xlInsideHorizontal).ColorIndex = 8

NOTE: When you use the xlInsideVertical constant, the selected range must contain at least two columns. When you use the xlInsideHorizontal constant, the selected range must contain at least two rows. If the selection does not contain the necessary number of columns or rows, you receive the following error message:

Run-time error '1004': Unable to set the ColorIndex property of the Border class

Diagonal Up and Diagonal Down Borders

To use the ColorIndex property for these types of borders, first set the Weight property of the border; for example:

With Selection.Borders(xlDiagonalUp)

    .Weight = xlThin
    .ColorIndex = 9

End With

-or-

Selection.Borders(xlDiagonalDown).Weight = xlMedium
Selection.Borders(xlDiagonalDown).ColorIndex = 10

NOTE: If you use the ColorIndex property of the diagonal border before you set its Weight property, the ColorIndex property is ignored, and the border appears in the default color (black). If you do not set the Weight property, the border does not appear.

MORE INFORMATION

In Microsoft Excel 2000, if you run a macro with the following line of code

MsgBox ActiveCell.Borders.Count

a message box with the number of borders for the active cell appears. By running this macro, you can determine that a cell contains six borders: left, right, top, bottom, diagonal up, and diagonal down. However, if you specify a color for all six borders by running a macro that uses the following line of code

ActiveCell.Borders.ColorIndex = 3

the color for only the first four borders is changed. The color for the diagonal borders is not changed because no weight is specified for them.

NOTE: You can use the workaround in this article to force the diagonal borders to appear.