Converting to Monochromatic Data Bars in Excel 2007:-

As we know, color scales do not perform well when printed in black and white. When you know you’ll be printing in black and white, one option is to convert a color scale to a monochromatic scale that varies from white to a dark color. To do so, you follow these steps:

1. Select a single cell in your formatted range.

2. From the Insert ribbon, choose Conditional Formatting, Manage Rules. In the Conditional Formatting Rules Manager dialog that appears, the initial drop-down defaults to Current Selection. This works fine as long as your selection is part of the range that has conditional formatting. The dialog shows any conditional formatting rule(s) applied to the current selection.

3. Even if there is only one rule in the dialog, click the rule to select it and then click Edit Rule. Initially, the Edit Formatting Rule dialog shows the selected yellow–red scale, as shown in the Figure (given below).



(You can customize the settings for a color scale in the lower half of the Edit Formatting Rule dialog.)

4. For color scales, change any of the settings in the lower half of the dialog box, in the Edit the Rule Description section. From the Format Style drop-down, choose 2-Color Scale. (The other options included are 3-Color Scale, Data Bar, and Icon Sets.)

5. For the minimum, select the Color drop-down and choose white. For the maximum, select the Color drop-down and choose a dark color. Click OK to return to the Conditional Formatting Rules Manager dialog and then click OK again to complete the operation.

The new monochromatic color scale is shown in the Figure (given below).



(Setting up a two-color gradient from white to dark works best with a printed document.)