I’ve noticed this happens about 50% of the time I use the Filter option within Excel (I’m using Vista)...

I need to filter thousands of rows of text by the "contains" option for three cities (London, Rome, Madrid). I need to do this 3x because each city needs to be highlighted/filled in a different color.

I come across problems after I have completed the first filter, eg London and filled the cells with Yellow. I then go on to the next Filter for "Rome" and try to fill them in Orange, but Excel will not let me use the fill option again.

I do just want to make it clear that I am not filtering by color - I am adding color AFTER I have filtered by city.

I am quite a savvy Excel user, so if you have any advanced help here, I would be gratefully appreciative. As I say, this happens about 50% of the time I use Excel, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't...

Many thanks in advance