Tips for Using Conditional Formatting in Excel

Sometimes when using excel you will want to highlight some cells when the number is a specific number or a number range. For an example if you are doing test scores and you want to know which students failed the test at a quick glance it would be nice to have it formatted to where it would bring attention to the test scores quickly. With Conditional Formatting in Excel you can do just that.

To start the conditional formatting feature you will want to highlight the cells that you would like the formatting applied to. Just highlight them by dragging your mouse over them while holding down the left mouse button. Once you have them all highlighted release the mouse button and they will be a blue-highlight. Now once you have them highlighted, click on Format > Conditional Format. This will bring up a new box where you will put in your criteria for what you want these cells to do.

With Conditional formatting you can specify 3 different conditions that will be applied to these cells. The first box is Cell value, the second box is between, greater then, less then, and several other options. Then you chose the numbers that you want it to apply to. So if you were looking for students that failed the test you would do Cell Value Equal to or less than 'your number'. You can also make this a number range if you chose between as the criteria. Then once you get that filled in you click on Format button. Here is where you are going to decide what you want the formatting to be. You can make it bold, change the color of the font, change the font itself, or change the background of the cell.

Once you decide what font and background you want for this rule, it will change all the cells that meet those criteria without anything else being done. This is a great feature if you have a huge workbook filled with data and you can quickly glance over and see the different rows and see what cells are what you are looking for.

You can set up to 3 different rules per cell. So you can have it show many different results with a quick glance. The cells will change back to normal fonts if you don't meet any of the criteria that you have set in the Conditional Formatting.

This is an easy way to have Excel work for you and make your tasks easier and quicker to do.