How to Grey Out Unused Cells in Excel (3 Quick Methods)

Suppose you have a worksheet that contains data in cells of the B2:D12 range, and you want to grey out the remaining cells of the worksheet. Let’s see how we can accomplish this.

Method 1 – Apply Conditional Formatting to Grey Out Unused Cells

Steps:

Select all cells of the worksheet by clicking the top-left corner of the worksheet.

Go to the Home tab and click on Conditional Formatting.
Select the New Rule option.

A window named New Formatting Rule will appear.
Select Format only cells that contain.
Select Blanks in the Format only cells with box.
Go to the Format option.

A new window named “Format Cells” will appear. Go to the Fill tab.
Select any shade of grey as the background color.
Press OK.

Click OK in the New Formatting Rule window.
You will see that all cells except those containing data are greyed out.

Read More: How to Delete a Cell in Excel

Method 2 – Use the Page Break Preview Button

Steps:

Open the workbook and go to View.
Click on Page Break Review

You will see that the cells with data are separated on page 1, and the remaining cells are greyed out.

Read More:

Method 3 – Grey Out Unused Cells with the Fill Color Feature

Steps:

Click on the row header of the next row after the end of the dataset.
Press Ctrl + Shift + Down arrow on the keyboard.
You will see all rows under the dataset have been selected.

Right-click and select Fill Color.

Select a shade of grey to apply as the fill color on the selected cells.

You can also use the Fill Color feature from the top ribbon. You will find it in the Home tab.

You will see that all rows under the dataset have been filled with a grey color.

Click on column header E after the end of the dataset.
Press the Ctrl + Shift + Right arrow keys on the keyboard to select all columns on the right side of the column.