In reply to Kent Lewandowski.

Hello Kent,
By default, even if you do not specify a style using the STYLE= option, the Excel style should be used by default. Typically Excel uses red when it cannot resolve a background color. It almost appears that a default color is being applied to the background of the worksheet cannot be resolved. This is similar to what you would see below when I added an invalid background color for the body of the worksheet below. Make sure that there is not an "Excel" style in SASUSER causing problems by using the ODS PATH statement pointing to the SASHELP.TMPLMST(READ) item store with the access method of read only and see if the problem still persist.

ods path(prepend) work.templat(update);
proc template;
define style styles.test;
parent=styles.excel;
class body /
background=xxxxx;
end;
run;

ods excel file="temp.xlsx" style=styles.test;
proc print data=sashelp.class;
run;
ods excel close;

Sincerely,
Chevell