Microsoft KB Archive/71747

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Unable to Read Row and Column Heading Text in Excel

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The information in this article applies to:


 * Microsoft Excel for Windows, versions 3.0, 4.0, 5.0

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SUMMARY
If a ButtonFace parameter is present in the [colors] section of your WIN.INI file, Microsoft Excel uses this color for your row and column headings and status bar. However, the color for the row and column heading text, as well as the gridlines, is determined by the WindowText parameter rather than the ButtonText parameter. Therefore, if ButtonFace defines a color similar to WindowText, you may not be able to read the text for these items, even though you can see your gridlines; adding a &quot;ButtonText=&quot; line to the WIN.INI file does not solve the problem.

Steps to Reproduce Problem
 Open your WIN.INI file (from the WINDOWS directory) in any text editor, and scroll to the [colors] section.  Make sure that the following lines are in the [colors] section:

     WindowText=0 0 0 ButtonFace=0 0 0 ButtonText=255 255 255

This will define WindowText and ButtonFace as black, and ButtonText as white.  Save the changes. Completely exit and restart Windows, as well as Excel. Notice that the system buttons are black with white text, but the status bar, as well as the row and column headings, are solid black.

Workaround
To solve the problem, either remove the &quot;ButtonFace=&quot; line from your WIN.INI file or make sure that the colors defined for ButtonFace and WindowText are sufficiently different from one another.