Search code examples
vbaexcelexcel-2007excel-2013

Creating a "color scale" using vba (avoiding conditional formatting)

I'm looking for a way to apply a color scale to a set of cells via VBA code but not by applying some conditional formatting... I want to apply them as static colors (InteriorColor)

I've searched plenty of excel sites, google and stackoverflow and found nothing :(

For my situation if you look at the following picture:

http://i.imgur.com/j8ov4FJ.png

You can see I've given it a color scale, in this example though I have done the color scale via Conditional formatting. I want to create the color scale via VBA but it must avoid using conditional formatting, I want to assign interior colors to the cells so that the colors are static which makes them visible on all mobile excel viewers, faster, won't change if I was to remove any numbers/rows.

Here are some example data Just save it in a csv and open it in excel to see the data in excel :P:

Data 1 (Yes there are blanks),Data 2,Data 3,Data 4,Data 5,Data 6
155.7321504,144.6395913,1,-4,-9.3844,0.255813953
113.0646481,120.1609771,5,-2,-2.5874,0.088082902
126.7759917,125.3691519,2,0,-0.0004,0.107843137
,0,7,,,0.035714286
123.0716084,118.0409686,4,0,0.3236,0.118881119
132.4137536,126.5740362,3,-2,-3.8814,0.090909091
70,105.9874422,6,-1,-0.3234,0.103896104

I do use the following in python but obviously I can't use this code in VBA, the following code successfully assigns hex colors to the numbers from a predefined array of 50 colors so it's pretty accurate.

def mapValues(values):
    nValues = np.asarray(values, dtype="|S8")
    mask = (nValues != '')
    maskedValues = [float(i.split('%')[0]) for i in nValues[mask]]
    colorMap = np.array(['#F8696B', '#F86E6C', '#F8736D', '#F8786E', '#F97E6F', '#F98370', '#F98871', '#FA8E72', '#FA9373', '#FA9874', '#FA9E75', '#FBA376', '#FBA877', '#FBAD78', '#FCB379', '#FCB87A', '#FCBD7B', '#FCC37C', '#FDC87D', '#FDCD7E', '#FDD37F', '#FED880', '#FEDD81', '#FEE382', '#FEE883', '#FCEB84', '#F6E984', '#F0E784', '#E9E583', '#E3E383', '#DCE182', '#D6E082', '#D0DE82', '#C9DC81', '#C3DA81', '#BDD881', '#B6D680', '#B0D580', '#AAD380', '#A3D17F', '#9DCF7F', '#96CD7E', '#90CB7E', '#8ACA7E', '#83C87D', '#7DC67D', '#77C47D', '#70C27C', '#6AC07C', '#63BE7B'])
    _, bins = np.histogram(maskedValues, 49)
    try:
        mapped = np.digitize(maskedValues, bins)
    except:
        mapped = int(0)
    nValues[mask] = colorMap[mapped - 1]
    nValues[~mask] = "#808080"
    return nValues.tolist()

Anyone have any ideas or has anyone done this before with VBA.

Solution

  • I've managed to find the correct answer, it's actually rather simple. All you have to do is add conditional formatting and then set the .Interior.Color to the same as what the .DisplayFormat.Interior.Color is and then delete the conditional formatting.

    This will do exactly what is requested in the main post; and if you want to do it as a fallback then just don't delete the conditional formatting.

    ' Select Range
Range("A2:A8").Select

' Set Conditional
Selection.FormatConditions.AddColorScale ColorScaleType:=3
Selection.FormatConditions(Selection.FormatConditions.Count).SetFirstPriority
Selection.FormatConditions(1).ColorScaleCriteria(1).Type = xlConditionValueLowestValue
With Selection.FormatConditions(1).ColorScaleCriteria(1).FormatColor
    .Color = 7039480
    .TintAndShade = 0
End With
Selection.FormatConditions(1).ColorScaleCriteria(2).Type = xlConditionValuePercentile
Selection.FormatConditions(1).ColorScaleCriteria(2).Value = 50
With Selection.FormatConditions(1).ColorScaleCriteria(2).FormatColor
    .Color = 8711167
    .TintAndShade = 0
End With
Selection.FormatConditions(1).ColorScaleCriteria(3).Type = xlConditionValueHighestValue
With Selection.FormatConditions(1).ColorScaleCriteria(3).FormatColor
    .Color = 8109667
    .TintAndShade = 0
End With

' Set Static
For i = 1 To Selection.Cells.Count
    Selection.Cells(i).Interior.Color = Selection.Cells(i).DisplayFormat.Interior.Color
Next

' Delete Conditional
Selection.Cells.FormatConditions.Delete

    Hopefully this helps someone in the future.