Are you using the right colour?

 Jan 15, 2015

Computer screens and TVs are capable of displaying up to 16,777,216 colours. This is referred to as True Colour. All the applications in the Microsoft Office suite use this palette of colours. You can decide exactly which colour you want to use very easily for anything from the font colour in Word to the colour of a pie slice in an Excel worksheet to a flowchart symbol in Visio.

Apart from the Theme Colours, the initial choice of Standard Colours is limited to just 10: Dark Red, Red, Orange, Yellow, Light Green, Green, Light Blue, Blue, Dark Blue and Purple. Colour 1If you want a wider choice, choose More Colours… and a dialog box appears: Colour 2

This provides access to a further 126 colours, 15 shades of grey, black, and white. For the most comprehensive array of colours, you need to click on the Custom tab: Colour 3This gives the option of True Colour. So if you want to use the corporate colours of the organisation you work for, you can. Each colour is made up of red, green and blue. How much of each of these base colours is determined by a number from 0 to 255. If it’s 0 then none of that colour is used. If it is 255 then the full intensity of that colour is used. Therefore, black is 0,0,0. White is 255,255,255 and 127,0,127 would give you a nice shade of purple. To find out what colours are used by your employer, you should ask your marketing department. They may also have a Style Guide to follow when producing content (such as PowerPoint presentations or promotional flyers) to be used for external communications.

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About the Author:

Ben Kirk  

With over 16 years of experience working as a Desktop Applications specialist for a number of large education services providers, Ben is one of New Horizons most skilled and dynamic instructors. With his Advanced Diploma of Business Skills alongside his practical experience and expertise, Ben is able to provide insight and guidance to students at all skill levels across the entire Microsoft Office suite.

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