Logo

The World is not Just Black and White with Ideate Sticky!

Every day, our Ideate Software Support team fields all types of questions from AECO professionals all around the world. 


Thousands of Revit users all around the world use Ideate Sticky every day to combine the ease and flexibility of Excel, Word, and PDF editing with the convenience of a sticky note. Ideate Sticky elegantly connects non-BIM data from an Excel, Word, or PDF document into Revit projects, enhancing cross-team workflows.


A customer contacted us to ask why the cell fill color and the colored text in Excel was displaying only black and white when they linked the Excel file into Revit as a Sticky schedule.


Several situations can prevent the desired colors from displaying within Revit.


  1. Excel may have an override Black and White setting selected within the Sheet tab of the Page Setup dialog. This will cause any Excel file to be black and white within either a Schedule or Image for Ideate Sticky. It’s important to understand that this setting will override any color setting you may have selected within Ideate Sticky Images method shown below.
Ideate Sticky - Override Color Setting

2.  If you are using the Images method within Ideate Sticky, there are additional settings to override the Excel, PDF, or Word document to Black and White or Grayscale. You can also make the background transparent which is extremely useful when you have multiple images on a view or sheet that are close to each other.

Ideate Sticky - Colors

3.  Conditional formatting is currently not supported within the Ideate Sticky Schedules method. Color fills, text overrides, etc., that are a result of conditional formatting will be ignored. The underlying cell formatting, which can be seen when you place your cursor within the cell, will be utilized instead. However, this conditional formatting is now supported within the Ideate Sticky Images method. 


At the end of the day, this specific customer had the override Black and White checkbox selected within Excel. Unchecking that selection within Excel produced the desired colors within the Ideate Sticky schedule.

Explore recent posts

Enhancing Revit Model Performance Through Model Maintenance
January 17, 2025
TRAINING - VIDEO | Struggling with sluggish Revit models? Watch Olivia Morgan as she shares expert tips on model maintenance using Revit and Ideate Software tools. Learn how to boost model performance with industry best practices, maintain optimal element thresholds with clear guidelines, streamline workflows using Ideate Software add-ins, and keep your models healthy with a detailed BIM maintenance checklist.
Maximize Your Revit Productivity with Strucsoft and Ideate Software
January 10, 2025
VIDEO - TRAINING | https://youtu.be/SAbwNTrLnYw Explore how Ideate Software’s powerful Revit plugins streamline data management, improve model health, and enhance documentation workflows. In this webinar, we also highlight how Strucsoft tools complement Ideate solutions to boost efficiency for framing and construction projects.
Managing Revit Parameters with Ideate Software
December 19, 2024
TRAINING - VIDEO | With Ideate Software, creating and managing parameters in Revit becomes a streamlined and efficient process. Our Revit add-ins allow users to easily define, organize, and control project parameters. Extract parameter data across Revit linked models allowing you to create new parameters which ensures consistency.
Enhance Your QA/QC Workflows with Ideate Software
December 11, 2024
TRAINING - VIDEO | Watch this webinar recording to discover how Ideate Software solutions can streamline QA/QC workflows in Revit. Learn how to enhance productivity and precision with powerful Revit add-ins designed for efficiency. If you're a BIM professional, this session is perfect for discovering how to optimize your workflows and elevate your BIM strategies.
Show More
Share by: