- #Conditional formatting excel 2016 cell color how to
- #Conditional formatting excel 2016 cell color full
If your formula is entered correctly but is not triggering the rule, you may have to dig a little deeper. To fix, just remove the double quotes Excel added at either side and make sure the formula begins with equals (=). If you forget this step, Excel will silently convert your entire formula to text, rendering it useless. First, make sure you started the formula with an equals sign (=). If you can't get your conditional formatting rules to fire correctly, there's most likely a problem with your formula.
#Conditional formatting excel 2016 cell color how to
Video: How to build a search box to highlight data.Article: How to highlight rows that contain specific text.Article: How to highlight cells that contain specific text.
#Conditional formatting excel 2016 cell color full
Some of these examples can be created using Excel's built-in presets for highlighting cells, but custom formulas can go far beyond presets, as you can see below.įor more details and a full explanation, see: Formula Examplesīelow are examples of custom formulas you can use to apply conditional formatting. If you struggle with this, see the section on Dummy Formulas below. Imagine that you entered the formula in the upper-left cell of the selection, and then copied the formula across the entire selection. the upper-left cell). The trick to understanding how conditional formatting formulas work is to visualize the same formula being applied to each cell in the selection, with cell references updated as usual. When conditional formatting is applied to a range of cells, enter cell references with respect to the first row and column in the selection (i.e. The above formulas all return TRUE or FALSE, so they work perfectly as a trigger for conditional formatting. Here's the result of the rule applied to the range B4:F8 in this spreadsheet: Formulas give you maximum power and flexibility.įor example, using the "Equal to" preset, it's easy to highlight cells equal to "apple".īut what if you want to highlight cells equal to "apple" or "kiwi" or "lime"? Sure, you can create a rule for each value, but that's a lot of trouble. Instead, you can simply use one rule based on a formula with the OR function: By using your own formula, you take over the condition that triggers a rule and can apply exactly the logic you need.
However, you can also create rules with your own custom formulas. With conditional formatting, you can do things like highlight dates in the next 30 days, flag data entry problems, highlight rows that contain top customers, show duplicates, and more.Įxcel ships with a large number of "presets" that make it easy to create new rules without formulas. As a result, cell B2, C2 and cell D2 also contain the formula =$C2="USA", cell A3, B3, C3 and D3 contain the formula =$C3="USA", etc.Quick Start | Examples | Troubleshooting | TrainingĬonditional formatting is a fantastic way to quickly visualize data in a spreadsheet. Select a formatting style and click OK.Įxplanation: we fixed the reference to column C by placing a $ symbol in front of the column letter ($C2). Thus, cell A2 contains the formula =ISODD(A2), cell A3 contains the formula =ISODD(A3), etc.ġ0. Excel automatically copies the formula to the other cells. Excel highlights all odd numbers.Įxplanation: always write the formula for the upper-left cell in the selected range. Select 'Use a formula to determine which cells to format'.Ħ. Formulas that apply conditional formatting must evaluate to TRUE or FALSE.Ĥ. Take your Excel skills to the next level and use a formula to determine which cells to format. Note: you can also use this category (see step 3) to highlight the top n items, the top n percent, the bottom n items, the bottom n percent or cells that are below average. Excel calculates the average (42.5) and formats the cells that are above this average. To highlight cells that are above average, execute the following steps.ģ. Click Clear Rules, Clear Rules from Selected Cells. To clear a conditional formatting rule, execute the following steps.ģ.
Note: you can also use this category (see step 3) to highlight cells that are less than a value, between two values, equal to a value, cells that contain specific text, dates (today, last week, next month, etc.), duplicates or unique values. Excel changes the format of cell A1 automatically. Excel highlights the cells that are greater than 80. Enter the value 80 and select a formatting style. Click Highlight Cells Rules, Greater Than.Ĥ. On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click Conditional Formatting.ģ.