Two ways to change background color in Excel based on cell value

In this article, you will find two quick ways to change the background color of cells based on value in Excel 2016, 2013 and 2010. Also, you will learn how to use Excel formulas to change the color of blank cells or cells with formula errors.

Everyone knows that changing the background color of a single cell or a range of data in Excel is easy as clicking the Fill color Fill color icon button . But what if you want to change the background color of all cells with a certain value? Moreover, what if you want the background color to change automatically along with the cell value's changes? Further in this article you will find answers to these questions and learn a couple of useful tips that will help you choose the right method for each particular task.

How to change a cell's color based on value in Excel dynamically

The background color will change dependent on the cell's value.

Task: You have a table or range of data, and you want to change the background color of cells based on cell values. Also, you want the color to change dynamically reflecting the data changes.

Solution: You need to use Excel conditional formatting to highlight the values greater than X, less than Y or between X and Y.

Suppose you have a list of gasoline prices in different states and you want the prices greater than USD 3.7 to be of the color red and equal to or less than USD 3.45 to be of the color green. A table listing gasoline prices in different states

Note: The screenshots for this example were captured in Excel 2010, however the buttons, dialogs and settings are the same or nearly the same in Excel 2016 and Excel 2013.

Okay, here is what you do step-by-step:

  1. Select the table or range where you want to change the background color of cells. In this example, we've selected $B$2:$H$10 (the column names and the first column listing the state names are excluded from the selection).
  2. Navigate to the Home tab, Styles group, and choose Conditional Formatting > New Rule…. On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click Conditional Formatting - New Rule…
  3. In the New Formatting Rule dialog box, select "Format only cells that contain" under "Select a Rule Type" box in the upper part of the dialog box.
  4. In the lower part of the dialog box under "Format Only Cells with section", set the rule conditions. We choose to format only cells with a Cell Value - greater than - 3.7, as you can see in the screenshot below. Select 'Format only cells that contain' and set the rule conditions.

    Then click the Format… button to choose what background color to apply when the above condition is met.

  5. In the Format Cells dialog box, switch to the Fill tab and select the color of your choice, the reddish color in our case, and click OK. In the Format Cells dialog box, on the Fill tab, select the background color of your choice.
  6. Now you are back to the New Formatting Rule window and the preview of your format changes is displayed in the Preview box. If everything is Okay, click the OK button. The preview of format changes is displayed in the Preview box.

    The result of your formatting will look similar to this: The background color of selected cells is changed based on cell values.

    Since we need to apply one more condition, i.e. change the background of cells with values equal to or less than 3.45 to the green color, click the New Rule button again and repeat steps 3 - 6 setting the required condition. Here is the Preview of our second conditional formatting rule: A rule to change the background of cells with values equal to or less than 3.45 to the green color

    When you are done, click the OK button. What you have now is a nicely formatted table that lets you see the highest and lowest gas prices across different states at a glance. Lucky they are in Texas :) The background color is changed based on 2 conditional formatting rules.

    Tip: You can use the same method to change the font color based on the cell's value. To do this, simply switch to the Font tab in the Format Cells dialog box that we discussed in step 5 and choose your preferred font color.

    The font color is changed based on 2 conditional formatting rules.

How to permanently change a cell's color based on its current value

Once set, the background color will not change no matter how the cell's contents might change in the future.

Task: You want to color a cell based on its current value and wish the background color to remain the same even when the cell value's changes.

Solution: Find all cells with a certain value or values using Excel's Find All function or Select Special Cells add-in, and then change the format of found cells using the Format Cells feature.

This is one of those rare tasks that are not covered in Excel help files, forums and blogs and for which there is no straightforward solution. And this is understandable, because this task is not typical. And still, if you need to change the background color of cells statically i.e. once and forever unless you change it manually again, proceed with the following steps.

Find and select all cells that meet a certain condition

There may be several possible scenarios depending on what kind of values you are looking for.

If you need to color cells with a particular value, e.g. 50, 100 or 3.4, go to the Home tab, Editing group, and click Find Select > Find…. Go to the Home tab, Editing group, and click Find Select > Find…

Enter the needed values and click the Find All button. Enter the needed values and click the Find All button.

Tip: Click the Options button in the right-hand part of the Find and Replace dialog to get a number of advanced search options, such as "Match Case" and "Match entire cell content". You can use wildcard characters, such as an asterisk (*) to find any string of characters or a question mark (?) to find any single character.

In our previous example, if we needed to find all gas prices between 3.7 and 3.799, we would specify the following search criteria: Use the wildcard character to find all gas prices between 3.7 and 3.799

Now select any of the found items in the lower part of the Find and Replace dialog window by clicking on it and then press Ctrl + A to select all found entries. After that click the Close button. Select all found items and click the Close button.

This is how you select all cells with a certain value(s) using the Find All function in Excel.

However, what we actually need is to find all gas prices higher than 3.7 and regrettably Excel's Find and Replace dialog does not allow for such things.

Luckily, there is another tool that can handle such complex conditions. The Select Special Cells add-in lets you find all values in a specified range, e.g. between -1 and 45, get the maximum / minimum value in a column, row or range, find cells by font color, fill color and much more. Select Special Cells add-in for Excel

You click the Select by Value button on the ribbon and then specify your search criteria on the add-in's pane, in our example we are looking for values greater than 3.7. Click the Select button and in a second you will have a result like this: Select all values within a particular range using Select Special Cells add-in.

If you are interested to try the Select Special Cells add-in, you can download an evaluation version here.

Change the background color of selected cells using "Format Cells" dialog

Now that all cells with a specified value or values are selected (either by using Excel's Find and Replace or Select Special Cells add-in) what is left for you to do is force the background color of selected cells to change when a value changes.

Open the Format Cells dialog by pressing Ctrl + 1 (you can also right click any of selected cells and choose "Format Cells…" from the pop-up menu, or go to Home tab > Cells group > Format > Format Cells…) and make all format changes you want. We will choose to change the background color in orange this time, just for a change :) Change the background color of selected cells using the Format Cells dialog.

If you want to alter the background color only without any other format changes, then you can simply click the Fill color button and choose the color to your liking. Change the background color of selected cells by clicking the Fill color button.

Here is the result of our format changes in Excel: The backgrounds color of selected cells is changed permanently, regardless of the cell value's changes.

Unlike the previous technique with conditional formatting, the background color set in this way will never change again without your notice, no matter how the values change.

Change background color for special cells (blanks, with formula errors)

Like in the previous example, you can change the background color of special cells in two ways, dynamically and statically.

Use Excel formula to change background color of special cells

A cell's color will change automatically based on the cell's value.

This method provides a solution that you will most likely need in 99% of cases, i.e. the background color of cells will change according to the conditions you set.

We are going to use the gas prices table again as an example, but this time a couple of more states are included and some cells are empty. See how you can detect those blank cells and change their background color.

  1. On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click Conditional Formatting > New Rule… (see step 2 of How to dynamically change a cell color based on value for step-by-step guidance).
  2. In the "New Formatting Rule" dialog, select the option "Use a formula to determine which cells to format". Then enter one of the following formulas in the "Format values where this formula is true" field:
    • =IsBlank()- to change the background color of blank cells.
    • =IsError() - to change the background color of cells with formulas that return errors.

    Since we are interested in changing the color of empty cells, enter the formula =IsBlank(), then place the cursor between parentheses and click the Collapse Dialog button Collapse Dialog icon in the right-hand part of the window to select a range of cells, or you can type the range manually, e.g. =IsBlank(B2:H12). Enter the formula and select a range of cells.

  3. Click the Format… button and choose the needed background color on the Fill tab (for detailed instructions, see step 5 of "How to dynamically change a cell color based on value") and then click OK.

    The preview of your conditional formatting rule will look similar to this: A rule to change the background color of blank cells using a formula

  4. If you are happy with the color, click the OK button and you'll see the changes immediately applied to your table. Click the OK button and you'll see the changes immediately applied to your table.

Change the background color of special cells statically

Once changed, the background color will remain the same, regardless of the cell values' changes.

If you want to change the color of blank cells or cells with formula errors permanently, follow this way.

  1. Select your table or a range and press F5 to open the "Go To" dialog, and then click the "Special…" button. Open the
  2. In the "Go to Special" dialog box, check the Blanks radio button to select all empty cells. Check the Blanks radio button to select all empty cells.

    If you want to highlight cells containing formulas with errors, choose Formulas > Errors. As you can see in the screenshot above, a handful of other options are available to you.

  3. And finally, change the background of selected cells, or make any other format customizations using the "Format Cells" dialog as described in Changing the background of selected cells.

Just remember that formatting changes made in this way will persist even if your blank cells get filled with data or formula errors are corrected. Of course, it's hard to imagine off the top of the head why someone may want to have it this way, may be just for historical purposes :)

How to get most of Excel and make challenging tasks easy

As an active user of Microsoft Excel, you know that it has plenty of features. Some of them we know and love, others are a complete mystery for an average user and various blogs, including this one, are trying to shed at least some light on them. But! There are a few very common tasks that all of us have to perform daily and Excel simply does not provide any features or tools to automate them or make an inch easier.

For example, if you need to check 2 worksheets for duplicates or merge rows from single or different spreadsheets, it would take a bunch of arcane formulas or macros and still there is no guarantee you would get the accurate results.

That was the reason why a team of our best Excel developers designed and created 70+ add-ins that we call the Ultimate Suite for Excel. These smart tools handle the most grueling, painstaking and error-prone tasks in Excel and ensure quickly, neatly and flawless results. Below is a short list of just some of the tasks the add-ins can help you with:

Just try these add-ins and you will see that your Excel productivity will increase up to 50%, at the very least!

That's all for now. In my next article we will continue to explore this topic further and you will see how you can quickly change the background color of a row based on a cell value. Hope to see you on our blog next week!

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426 comments

  1. thanks!!!

  2. Can I format a single cell or set of cells to highlight if another single cell or set of cells has any value? In other words, I have 5 cells that will contain data. If cells further down change from blank to any value (could be numeric or alpha or combo) I want the 5 cells with data to then be highlighted. Is that possible??

  3. Hi All,

    The numbers "Age" column should be filled in with colors against the status mentioned against each of them.

    How can we do this using conditional formatting.
    Say for example cell containing "3" should be filled with Orange color.

    Age Status
    3 Orange
    4 Green
    10 Red

    • Hello Dinesh

      Here is your solution step by step

      let me assume cell A2=3, A3=4 and A4=10

      1. Go to cell B2
      2. Click on Conditional Formatting
      3. Select Manage Rules
      4. Click New Rule
      5. Select Use a formula to determine which cells to format
      6. In the box of "Format values where this formula is true:" type
      =A2=3
      7. Click on format select fill and select the color you want
      8. Click ok again ok and again ok
      9. Go to Cell B3 and repeat step 2 to step 5
      10. In the box of "Format values where this formula is true:" type =A3=4
      11. Repeat step 7 and step 8
      12. Go to Cell B4 and repeat step 2 to step 5
      13. In the box of "Format values where this formula is true:" type =A4=10
      14. Repeat step 7 and step 8

      its done.

      enjoy.

  4. Svetlana,

    Thank you for the article. However, I am still trying to figure out a formatting issue. How can I automatically format multiple cells to a certain color if they have multiple values that are less than or greater than a certain value. For e.g., I am trying to format different values with different quota goals listed in multiple cells. Would I need to format each cell individually? I'd appreciate your feedback.

    • Hello Sushant,

      No need to format each cell individually. You can select the range where you want to apply the conditional formatting and apply it.

  5. Useful information.

    Thanks

  6. Hi Svetlana,

    Can you help me in this,

    I have two columns

    Column A - Numbers
    Column B - Some Remarks to be updated manually.

    If column A1>0 & B1 has some text B1 should not change its bg color
    If column A1>0 & B1 is blank then B1 should change its bg color to Yellow automatically

    Is it possible??

    Thanking you in advance.

    Awaiting for your reply....

    • Hello,

      Here is the solution.
      1. go to cell B1
      2. click on Conditional Formatting
      3. select Manage Rules
      4. click New Rule
      5. select Use a formula to determine which cells to format
      6. in the box of "Format values where this formula is true:" type
      =and(a1>0,b1="")
      7. click on format select fill and select the color you want
      8. click ok again ok and again ok

      its done.

      enjoy.

      • Thank you very much Deepak,
        It is working :)

  7. Hi Svetlana,

    I want to change the text of a Cell by changing color of another Cell. Like: If I change the color of A1 to green, then A2 should be written as Correct.

    Kindly help me with a function.

  8. I have one data sheet how can auto find particular record then find the record change the color of cell find the records.

    Thanks

  9. Is there a way to create conditional formatting that would change the color of a cell depending on the number of dates entered into the cell? For instance, I have a teacher that keeps up with her students' milestones by entering a date into the cell each time the student completes a milestone. If one or two dates are entered, she wants the cell to be yellow. When the third date is entered, she wants the cell to change to green. This would allow her to see the date in which a student reached a milestone and when they are completed the milestone. Any help would be appreciated! I'm completely stuck.

  10. Thanks for this helpful article.

  11. what if i want to change the color based on the value of other cell?
    Suppose that if value of F3 cell is greater than E3 cell then F3 cell should fill with red colour. How can i apply formula for that?

      • Hi Svetlana,
        I just have one problem hope you could suggest some steps.
        We export an excel file from web application we made which is working fine. Now we created an Excel template that we use to fill data. But I am stuck with one problem. When I export the file from web app I have no problem with styling, but when I use template I am unable to set background color for blank cells that are generated in between data. The data generated and is not having a fixed size of rows. Can we create a formula which will detect blank cells and follow the same rules we give for cells with data until the last row of data discovered and from there treat blank as blank.

  12. Hi Svetlana,

    i have highlited a column with 3 conditions and i got all the column filled with 3 different colrs as i needed. Now, i need to calculate no. of cells in each color for all 3 colors. can you help me?
    please.

    thanks.

  13. Hi, will you please help me,

    i want to find cell using find & select feature in excel with color, Format changing is not working with my excel,
    if you have any other way please help me.

    Thank's

  14. Hi Svetlana,

    I have Jan to Dec Sale for Year for 4 separate products and for 4 region.

    I have put vlookup to find sale sale for one product with one region.

    But it needs to be colored In Data sheet.

  15. Let say, we have standard output for various items in one column B2:B10. Daily production numbers for similar items are inserted in other columns C2:D10. For control purposes, daily production number below standard output should be formatted red in font in range C2:D10. How to get it done with Conditional formatting? Please advise.
    Thanks...Aamir

    IN STD Mon Tues
    1 200 190 200
    2 100 110 105
    3 250 240 210
    4 150 160 100
    5 275 274 250
    6 300 290 310
    7 350 360 340
    8 700 690 710
    9 250 255 250

  16. I need my cells to change color when a specific date arrives. Like 90 days before an expiration it changes to yellow and then 30 days prior it changes to red. Please help!

  17. It was very helpful....thank you

  18. I have the conditional formatting set for dates in one column, now how do I get that row to highlight based on that date.

    tia!

    • Just apply the rule to several columns that you want to have highlighted.

  19. Hi Svetlana,

    I have the following data...
    A1=20
    A2=12
    A3=9
    then
    B1=19
    B2=13
    B3=8
    I want that when the values in column A are smaller than the adjacent values in bolumn B, the figures in column A change colour. In this case, A1 and A3 should turn into a different colour.

    Thank you before hand for your help.

  20. I have a requirement whereby I want Cell Q21 to turn one of two colours based on the result that appears in Cell Q22.

    So if the result in Cell Q22 is equal to or greater than the value in Cell E20 I want Cell Q21 to turn "green"

    But if the result in Cell Q22 is less than the value in Cell E20 I want the Cell Q21 to turn "red"

    Can someone please advise a formula that can achieve this.

    Thank you.

    • Hello Perry,

      You can create 2 rules for Q21 with the following formulas:

      Green: =$Q$22>=$E$20
      Red: =$Q$22<$E$20

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