Excel does not provide facilities for sorting or filtering a range of cells by the colour of the cells, or for counting the instances of a particular colour. Here is a User Defined Functions(UDF) that will do the trick.
This UDF will return an array of colorindex values that can be used in standard worksheet functions. For exapmle: ColorIndex(A1)
To create a new UDF in Excel 2007, open Developer -> Visual Basic Editor -> Insert -> Module
'---------------------------------------------------------------------
' ColorIndex Function
'---------------------------------------------------------------------
' Function: Returns the colorindex of the supplied range
' Synopsis: Initially, gets a colorindex value for black and white
' from the activeworkbook colour palette
' Then works through each cell in the supplied range and
' determines the colorindex, and adds to array
' Finishes by returning acumulated array
' Variations: Determines cell colour (interior) or text colour (font)
' Default is cell colour
' Constraints: Does not count colours set by conditional formatting
'---------------------------------------------------------------------
' Author: Bob Phillips
' Additions for ranges suggested by Harlan Grove
'---------------------------------------------------------------------
'---------------------------------------------------------------------
Function ColorIndex(rng As Range, _
Optional text As Boolean = False) As Variant
'---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dim cell As Range, row As Range
Dim i As Long, j As Long
Dim iWhite As Long, iBlack As Long
Dim aryColours As Variant
If rng.Areas.Count > 1 Then
ColorIndex = CVErr(xlErrValue)
Exit Function
End If
iWhite = WhiteColorindex(rng.Worksheet.Parent)
iBlack = BlackColorindex(rng.Worksheet.Parent)
If rng.Cells.Count = 1 Then
If text Then
aryColours = DecodeColorIndex(rng, True, iBlack)
Else
aryColours = DecodeColorIndex(rng, False, iWhite)
End If
Else
aryColours = rng.Value
i = 0
For Each row In rng.Rows
i = i + 1
j = 0
For Each cell In row.Cells
j = j + 1
If text Then
aryColours(i, j) = _
DecodeColorIndex(cell,True,iBlack)
Else
aryColours(i, j) = _
DecodeColorIndex(cell,False,iWhite)
End If
Next cell
Next row
End If
ColorIndex = aryColours
End Function
'---------------------------------------------------------------------
Private Function WhiteColorindex(oWB As Workbook)
'---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dim iPalette As Long
WhiteColorindex = 0
For iPalette = 1 To 56
If oWB.Colors(iPalette) = &HFFFFFF Then
WhiteColorindex = iPalette
Exit Function
End If
Next iPalette
End Function
'---------------------------------------------------------------------
Private Function BlackColorindex(oWB As Workbook)
'---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dim iPalette As Long
BlackColorindex = 0
For iPalette = 1 To 56
If oWB.Colors(iPalette) = &H0 Then
BlackColorindex = iPalette
Exit Function
End If
Next iPalette
End Function
'---------------------------------------------------------------------
Private Function DecodeColorIndex(rng As Range, _
text As Boolean, _
idx As Long)
'---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dim iColor As Long
If text Then
iColor = rng.font.ColorIndex
Else
iColor = rng.Interior.ColorIndex
End If
If iColor < 0 Then
iColor = idx
End If
DecodeColorIndex = iColor
End Function
'---------------------------------------------------------------------
' End of ColorIndex Function
'---------------------------------------------------------------------