Transparent background of ActiveX control

**dlh** · 01-06-2010, 07:19 PM

This is probably more of an ActiveX question than an Excel question.

I have an ActiveX Label control with a transparent background. When I click on the label the background turns white and stays that way as long as the mouse is over the label, obscuring whatever's underneath. (It also very slightly alters the character spacing.) What object/property controls this? How do I adjust it?

While I'm here, is there an easy programmatic way to assign arbitrary RGB colors to ActiveX controls? The palettes available from the Properties window are fairly limited. A google search for "ActiveX colors" yields a deluge of marketed products, so it's hard to find useful information.

EDITED: I found the answer to my 2nd question:

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I'm still looking for the answer to the transparent background question.

**Andy Pope** · 01-07-2010, 06:25 AM

No property thats just how the activex controls work.

If it's just a label can you not use a textbox?

**dlh** · 01-07-2010, 02:47 PM

No. A TextBox with Enabled = False behaves exactly the same as a Label (only the ForeColor is grey rather than customizeable). The TextBox's background turns untransparent when the mouse clicks on it.

The functionality I want seems fairly simple: I want a (semi-)fixed label with transparent background on top of a picture embedded within an Excel sheet. The user should not be able to change this label. How can it be done?

**Andy Pope** · 01-08-2010, 05:53 AM

Is that a textbox from the Control Toolbox?

What about from the Drawing toolbar.

That said all the various containers will turn the background white whilst editing them, if that is what you mean by semi-fixed.

**dlh** · 01-08-2010, 02:35 PM

Thank you Andy! I was being very dense. Drawing objects are a much better choice than ActiveX Labels.

**tonygardner** · 02-15-2017, 10:00 PM

I had the same issue, but ended up setting the background color of the image to match the picture behind it. The only trick was to identify the exact color, then convert it from RGB to HEX since there's no eyedropper available.