"ghost" text?

[ready961]

Hello. First off Im a total **** when it comes to excel so I will most like be using the wrong terminology for stuff. If I do please correct me.

I am trying to make a cell that a user will type in some info. But I want there to be some like light gray text there before they start to tell them what the cell is for. And once they start to type in the cell it goes away. You see this on main forms you fill out online or whatever. How can I do this in excel?
Thanks

[Palmetto]

You could use Conditional Formatting and set the format to whatever background and font color you want. Set up the CF to look at the cell value.

The cell value, initially, will equal the text you want in the cell telling the user what data to enter.

So, enter into cell, say A1: Enter your last name

Set the CF to test if the cell value is equal to "Enter your last Name" and it apply the color scheme. Once the user types something different, the CF will removed.

See the Conditional Formatting in cel A1 of the attached. Enter something different in the cell to see the CF in action.

[qniehausen]

This is great, but is there a way to have, instead of the gray background and slightly darker font, a pattern that hides the text altogether, with a message in the pattern?

Let's suppose you've already set parameters of what text is honored/ignored, and in the CF you ALSO set it to 'ignore' illegal text by graying it out... but instead of text & background being the same gray color (rendering it invisible) is there any way to make the gray pattern include a message that APPEARS to be text, but is really just part of the pattern waiting for a legal text entry?

If somebody involved in the next release of Excel could design something like that, I think it would be a hit!