POI setting Cell Background to a Custom Color

Question

I want to set custom color to a cell's background.
I use HSSFWorkbook (can't use anything else).

HSSFPalette palette = aWorkBook.getCustomPalette();             
Color col = new Color(backgroundColor);                     
HSSFColor myColor  = palette.addColor((byte) 10, (byte) 11, (byte) 12);

I get this error: java.lang.RuntimeException: Could not find free color index

Have you already defined the maximum number of colours in your file? (Excel has a hard limit on various things, such as the number or rows and columns, but also on the number of styles etc) — Gagravarr, May 10 '12 at 08:52
@kenny : can you please considering accepting on of the answers below if it really solved your problem? — veer7, Mar 30 '16 at 11:16

score 39 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 26 '17 at 22:55

You get this error because pallete is full. What you need to do is override preset color. Here is an example of function I'm using:

public HSSFColor setColor(HSSFWorkbook workbook, byte r,byte g, byte b){
    HSSFPalette palette = workbook.getCustomPalette();
    HSSFColor hssfColor = null;
    try {
        hssfColor= palette.findColor(r, g, b); 
        if (hssfColor == null ){
            palette.setColorAtIndex(HSSFColor.LAVENDER.index, r, g,b);
            hssfColor = palette.getColor(HSSFColor.LAVENDER.index);
        }
    } catch (Exception e) {
        logger.error(e);
    }

    return hssfColor;
}

And later use it for background color:

HSSFColor lightGray =  setColor(workbook,(byte) 0xE0, (byte)0xE0,(byte) 0xE0);
style2.setFillForegroundColor(lightGray.getIndex());
style2.setFillPattern(CellStyle.SOLID_FOREGROUND);

With Apache POI version > 4 you now have to use the following to get the color index : `HSSFColor.HSSFColorPredefined.LAVENDER.getIndex()`. — Yann39, Feb 15 '19 at 09:44

score 28 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 16 '13 at 11:10

See http://poi.apache.org/spreadsheet/quick-guide.html#CustomColors.

Custom colors

HSSF:

HSSFWorkbook wb = new HSSFWorkbook();
HSSFSheet sheet = wb.createSheet();
HSSFRow row = sheet.createRow((short) 0);
HSSFCell cell = row.createCell((short) 0);
cell.setCellValue("Default Palette");

//apply some colors from the standard palette,
// as in the previous examples.
//we'll use red text on a lime background

HSSFCellStyle style = wb.createCellStyle();
style.setFillForegroundColor(HSSFColor.LIME.index);
style.setFillPattern(HSSFCellStyle.SOLID_FOREGROUND);

HSSFFont font = wb.createFont();
font.setColor(HSSFColor.RED.index);
style.setFont(font);

cell.setCellStyle(style);

//save with the default palette
FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream("default_palette.xls");
wb.write(out);
out.close();

//now, let's replace RED and LIME in the palette
// with a more attractive combination
// (lovingly borrowed from freebsd.org)

cell.setCellValue("Modified Palette");

//creating a custom palette for the workbook
HSSFPalette palette = wb.getCustomPalette();

//replacing the standard red with freebsd.org red
palette.setColorAtIndex(HSSFColor.RED.index,
        (byte) 153,  //RGB red (0-255)
        (byte) 0,    //RGB green
        (byte) 0     //RGB blue
);
//replacing lime with freebsd.org gold
palette.setColorAtIndex(HSSFColor.LIME.index, (byte) 255, (byte) 204, (byte) 102);

//save with the modified palette
// note that wherever we have previously used RED or LIME, the
// new colors magically appear
out = new FileOutputStream("modified_palette.xls");
wb.write(out);
out.close();

XSSF:

XSSFWorkbook wb = new XSSFWorkbook();
XSSFSheet sheet = wb.createSheet();
XSSFRow row = sheet.createRow(0);
XSSFCell cell = row.createCell( 0);
cell.setCellValue("custom XSSF colors");

XSSFCellStyle style1 = wb.createCellStyle();
style1.setFillForegroundColor(new XSSFColor(new java.awt.Color(128, 0, 128)));
style1.setFillPattern(CellStyle.SOLID_FOREGROUND);

Using `java.awt.Color` no longer works with modern versions. Would you mind updating your example? — carlspring, Jan 07 '23 at 03:29

score 4 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 02 '15 at 18:17

4

Don't forget to call this.

style.setFillPattern(CellStyle.Align_Fill);

Parameter may differ according to your need. Maybe CellStyle.FINE_DOTS or so.

edited Aug 02 '15 at 18:17

josliber

43,891
12
98
133

answered Aug 02 '15 at 18:03

Alex Jin

239
1
4
15

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 22 '16 at 20:23

Slot free in NPOI excel indexedcolors from 57+

            Color selColor;

        var wb = new HSSFWorkbook();

        var sheet = wb.CreateSheet("NPOI");
        var style = wb.CreateCellStyle();
        var font = wb.CreateFont();
        var palette = wb.GetCustomPalette();

        short indexColor = 57; 
        palette.SetColorAtIndex(indexColor, (byte)selColor.R, (byte)selColor.G, (byte)selColor.B);

        font.Color = palette.GetColor(indexColor).Indexed;

Setting colors at index 57+ works also good on java's POI, thank you — Acuao, Feb 27 '20 at 09:24

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 09 '18 at 14:00

As pointed in Vlad's answer, you are running out of free color slots. One way to get around that would be to cache the colors: whenever you try a RGB combination, the routine should first check if the combination is in the cache; if it is in the cache, then it should use that one instead of creating a new one from scratch; new colors would then only be created if they're not yet in cache.

Here's the implementation I use; it uses XSSF plus Guava's LoadingCache and is geared towards generationg XSSF colors from CSS rgb(r, g, b) declarations, but it should be relatively trivial to adapt it to HSSF:

    private final LoadingCache<String, XSSFColor> colorsFromCSS = CacheBuilder.newBuilder()
            .build(new CacheLoader<String, XSSFColor>() {

                private final Pattern RGB = Pattern.compile("rgb\\(\\s*(\\d+)\\s*, \\s*(\\d+)\\s*,\\s*(\\d+)\\s*\\)");

                @Override
                public XSSFColor load(String style) throws Exception {
                    Matcher mat = RGB.matcher(style);
                    if (!mat.find()) {
                        throw new IllegalStateException("Couldn't read CSS color: " + style);
                    }                       
                    return new XSSFColor(new java.awt.Color(
                            Integer.parseInt(mat.group(1)), 
                            Integer.parseInt(mat.group(2)), 
                            Integer.parseInt(mat.group(3))));
                }

            });

Perhaps someone else could post a HSSF equivalent? ;)

abhishek maurya · Answer 6 · 2020-08-16T09:26:14.117

You can set custom color using this-

check out this - click hear

XSSFWorkbook workbook = new XSSFWorkbook();

IndexedColorMap colorMap = workbook.getStylesSource().getIndexedColors();
Font tableHeadOneFontStyle = workbook.createFont();
        tableHeadOneFontStyle.setBold( true );
        tableHeadOneFontStyle.setColor( IndexedColors.BLACK.getIndex() );

XSSFCellStyle tableHeaderOneColOneStyle = workbook.createCellStyle();
        tableHeaderOneColOneStyle.setFont( tableHeadOneFontStyle );
        tableHeaderOneColOneStyle
                .setFillForegroundColor( new XSSFColor( new java.awt.Color( 255, 231, 153 ), colorMap ) );
        tableHeaderOneColOneStyle.setFillPattern( FillPatternType.SOLID_FOREGROUND );
        tableHeaderOneColOneStyle = setLeftRightBorderColor( tableHeaderOneColOneStyle );
        tableHeaderOneColOneStyle = alignCenter( tableHeaderOneColOneStyle );

POI setting Cell Background to a Custom Color

6 Answers6

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