Although PowerPoint allows you to choose almost any color you want, it is often difficult to choose the same color for text as the grass or the sky in a picture on the same slide! PowerPoint 2016 for WindowsEyedropper option enables you to pick an exact color from anywhere, sometimes even from somewhere outside PowerPoint! Even better, when you are picking up the color from a source, you get to see the color preview as well as the RGB value of the color you are picking.

1. Eyedropper In Excel
2. Excel Color Dropper Tool
3. How To Use Eyedropper In Excel

In this article, we will explore how you can copy a color from a picture and use it as the fill and outline color of a shape. In the second part of this tutorial, we will explore advanced Eyedropper options such as copying text colors, and also how you can copy color from an object outside PowerPoint.

Eyedropper: Grabs a color from anywhere on the screen and applies it to the current shape. Picture: Fills the shape with a graphic you have on file. Gradient: Fills the shape with a gradient that gradually changes from one color to another. Texture: Fills the shape with a texture. 'pick Fill Colour' Eyedropper Is Greyed Out - Excel: View Answers: I would like to use a greater range of cell fill colours. Ever since I've had Excel, the eyedropper that would normally be clickable has been greyed out so I've made do with the limited range of cell fill colours available in the basic palette. See attached screen-grab.

There’s a small utility called Instant Eyedropper that runs in your system tray and will let you easily select a color from anywhere on the screen. Just click on the icon in the system tray and Hold down the mouse button you’ll see a little selector window as you move your mouse around the screen. Eyedropper the colour picker software helps you copy the form colour and apply to every other form. You possibly can choose and apply any colour seen in your display screen (be it textual content, form or from a window apart from PowerPoint) to a form. Excel, and PowerPoint).

Eyedropper In Excel

Follow these steps to learn how to use the Eyedropper option to copy colors for shapes:

1. Open or create a slide which already has text or shapes, and at least one picture, as you can see in Figure 1.
2. 
   Figure 1: Slide with shapes, text, and picture
2. Double-click any of the shapes to activate the Drawing Tools Format tab, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 2.
3. 
   Figure 2: Drawing Tools Format contextual tab
Note: The Drawing Tools Format tab is a Contextual tab. Contextual tabs are special tabs in the Ribbon that are not visible all the time. They make an appearance only when you are working with a particular slide object which can be edited using the options within these tabs.
3. Within Drawing Tools Format tab, click the downward pointing arrow on the right side of the Shape Fill button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 3.
4. 
   Figure 3: Shape Fill button
4. This brings up the Shape Fill drop-down gallery, as shown in Figure 4. Within the drop-down gallery, select the Eyedropper option (see Figure 4 again).
5. 
   Figure 4: Eyedropper option selected
5. As soon as the Eyedropper option is selected, the cursor changes to an eyedropper. Place your cursor over the color in the picture which you want to pick as a fill for your shape. As you move your cursor pointer over the color you want to pick you'll see a Live Preview of the color beneath within a square, as you can see highlighted in blue within Figure 5.
6. 
   Figure 5: Eyedropper cursor showing live preview of color
6. Hold your cursor at any position for a while, and you'll see the RGB (Red Green Blue) color coordinates and color name, as shown highlighted in blue within Figure 6.
7. 
   Figure 6: Eyedropper cursor showing RGB values of selected color
7. To apply the selected color as a fill for your shape, just click on the shape. This applies the color to the selected shape, as you can see in Figure 7.
8. 
   Figure 7: Color applied to shape from Eyedropper
8. In the same way, you can change the fill color of other shapes on the slide. Note that you can easily select multiple shapes and then apply the same fill color to all selected shapes. Figure 8, below shows different colors picked from the picture and applied to shapes as fills.
9. 
   Figure 8: Shapes filled with various colors selected from the picture
9. Notice that the Shape Fill drop-down gallery now shows all the picked colors under Recent Colors section (highlighted in red within Figure 9). Compare Figures 9 and 4.
10. 
    Figure 9: Picked colors under Recent Colors section
10. Similar to how you apply a fill color, you can also apply an outline color to your shapes. Just click the downward pointing arrow on the right side of Shape Outline button (highlighted in blue within Figure 3, above). This will bring up the drop-down gallery you see in Figure 10, below. Note the Eyedropper option available here.
11. 
    Figure 10: Shape Outline drop-down gallery
11. Figure 11, below shows the same slide after we picked up colors for shape fills and outlines. All these colors were sourced from the picture on the slide. Compare Figures1 and 11.
12. 
    Figure 11: Shape outlines applied with various colors selected from the picture
12. Make sure to save your presentation.

In the next tutorial of this series, we explore how you can pick colors for text using the Eyedropper option. We also show how you can copy color from outside PowerPoint, such as your desktop, a web site, or anywhere else.

Lots of my workshop participants are government employees who don't have or can't find style guides and/or they're not allowed to download eyedropper tools to locate color codes. Microsoft Paint to the rescue!

Hi! I am Matt Feldmann with Goshen Education Consulting in Southwestern Illinois (near St. Louis). Ann asked me to write this guest blog post to show you how to look up specific RGB color codes with a program you likely have already pre-installed on your computer--Microsoft Paint. Ann has previously discussed how to use an Instant eyedropper program to look up these color codes and how to use those codes to change your color scheme in Excel. If you are like me, you don’t like to download new software…and you don’t need to if you use Microsoft Windows.

Take a Screenshot and Paste It Into Paint

• I use shortcut keys. Press: ALT+PRTSCN
• Open MS Paint.
• Paste your screen shot using either CTRL+V, right clicking on your mouse and selecting PASTE, or selecting the PASTE button in MS Paint.

The following is a pasted screenshot from an upcoming conference:

Excel Color Dropper Tool

Use Color Picker to Identify a Color

Color Picker looks like an eyedropper and it is in the Tools section. It is identified below with my red arrow:

Select the Desired Color with the Eyedropper and Select Edit Colors

• I selected the green color with the eyedropper and it automatically switched Color 1 to green.
• Edit Colors is on the far right.

Record the RGB Codes for Future Use

The following is the screen that pops up when you edit colors. The Red, Green, Blue colors are on the right.

How To Use Eyedropper In Excel

But wait--isn't Paint dead? Apparently not. However, if you want to use the newer MS Paint 3D program (which is preloaded with Windows 10), there also is an eyedropper that records your RGB codes. As a bonus, it will also give you a Hex code.