Comments on: How to change the row color based on a cell value in Excel

Learn how to quickly change the color of the entire row based on a single cell's value in your Excel worksheets. Tips and formula examples for number and text values. Continue reading →

Comments page 5. Total comments: 546

  1. I have 2 conditions in one column yes or no
    Yes have pink color and no have yellow so which is the formula is used here to do so i wanna to do samething in other sheet
    Automatically it converts when I write yes or no

  2. Hi,
    I want my spreadsheet to change the color of each row only when an item number I have in Row B changes to a new Item number. These item numbers are not equally spaced and have no consistent scale or system to them.

    The only identifying factor is that the number changes to a different number, sometimes 5 rows apart other time 30 rows apart. The spreadsheet is over 70,000 rows. Solutions?

  3. Hi everybody,
    I need help please, i want to apply rules in my excel sheet,when i type specific word (Friday) row and column colour should be change, please help me resolve this.

  4. I want to color rows whennI type in yes or no of a certin Item in our inventory has been cycle cou ted... please help

  5. please try to help me i have workbook in that workbook i have two sheet (Data Entry Form) & Monthly report per day in calms and in rows name time i want to change cell background color in monthly report. Just i put in data entry form name of site and in monthly sheet automatically change cell color by site.

    1. Hello,
      For me to understand the problem better, please send me a small sample workbook with your source data and the result you expect to get to support@ablebits.com. Please don't worry if you have confidential information there, we never disclose the data we get from our customers and delete it as soon as the problem is resolved.
      Please also don't forget to include the link to this comment into your email.
      I'll look into your task and try to help.

    2. i am working excel workbook.

  6. How to "Conditional format all cells by using a four-color scale".

    1. Hello, Kobus,

      I'm afraid it's impossible to use four-color scale in conditional formatting. But perhaps VBA macros can help you. You may try to find the solution in VBA sections on mrexcel.com or excelforum.com.

      Sorry we can't assist you better.

  7. Hi, I want to ask you question and need your help

    want formula to do the following: if cell G1=text and date in the selected cell J1 is before 60 days then high light the row or selected cell

    and if cell G1=text2 and date in the selected cell J1 is before 90 days then high light the row or selected cell

    and if Cell G1=anyothertext please do nothing

  8. What formula can I use to change the font color of a row to red if a cell in that row is a date prior to today? And how would I repeat that for all subsequent rows?

    Thanks!

  9. Hi,
    Why i follow you but it highlighted all of selection area, not only rows which contain the cell has specific words i defined?

  10. hi,
    in may excel sheet lots of column and row, in last column header is status that contain DIS, RFD, RFI, 2, 3, 4, NP etc. If i put up DIS IN THAT COLUMN TOTAL COLOUR OF RO changes to green. how i do these

  11. This post was very helpful, but still need some additional assistance:

    I have a sheet used for inventory for deployed computer hardware. Not only is this data stored in the sheet but parts of it are also stored in our ERP system. And accounting needs to know when a computer is deployed so they can move the cost from IT to the deployed department. So I created columns for ERP and Accounting Notified that when those tasks are completed I simply put a Y in the cell. If there is a Y in either cell, highlight the row orange, and if there is a Y in both cells highlight the row green. This works fine when working with 1 row, but I need to replicate this down the entire sheet. What is the best way to accomplish this?

    1. Got it figured out. Had my conditional formula looking at a specific cell instead of a column.

      1. Hi Brian, I am having a similar problem to the one you described here in that I would have to replicate the formula for each row individually for it to be highlighted if a cell in the row contained "Completed". Can I ask you how you rectified your problem? Thanks

  12. thanks for this lesson ... really appreciated

  13. Sorry, should be this..

    What I’m trying to do is basically have 4 rules determine what colour to highlight an entire row based on what percentage it is in a cell. Not sure if they can be combined or not.

    If Column B percentage is 0 then highlight blue
    If Column B percentage is >15 then highlight yellow
    If Column B percentage is >50 then leave white

  14. Hello first of all, very grateful for the article and your help.

    What I’m trying to do is basically have 4 rules determine what colour to highlight an entire row based on what percentage it is in a cell. Not sure if they can be combined or not.

    If Column B percentage is 0 then highlight blue
    If Column B percentage is >15 then highlight yellow
    If Column B percentage is >50 then leave white

  15. Your first example doesn't work. In fact, the picture that shows the result doesn't even show what you say it does.

    1. Hi Stephen,

      The example works, but a wrong picture somehow showed up on the blog. Thank you for pointing that out, fixed!

  16. Hi there,

    How do I change a colour on a row of columns when a particular column is typed into eg in that column I will type YES and the entire column line turns green?

    1. Hi, Doreen,
      let's suppose you have a table A1:D7, you type "yes" into C2 and the entire row A2:D2 turns green.
      For that you need to create a formatting rule saying:
      =$C2="yes"

      and make sure the rule is applied to
      =$A$2:$D$7

      Please read the first point of the article above in order to see how to choose a colour for the conditional formatting rules.
      Hope this helps!

  17. Hi Sevtlana,

    Could I please request your help.

    I am having a trouble in colouring a cell , which is dependent on the value of other cell in different TAB but same worksheet. for example , if source cell has value between 90 & 100 , destination cell should reflect green colour..

    Can you help.

    1. Hi, Summit,
      to solve the task you need to use "AND" function in the formatting rule. If you mean that you work within one workbook, where the source cells are in the TAB2, column A, and the destination cells are in the TAB1, column A, the formula will look like this:
      =AND('TAB2'!$A1>90,'TAB2'!$A1<100)

      If you mean, that you work with different workbooks – change 'TAB' into '[Tab.xlsx]SHEETNAME' accordingly.
      To understand how the sheet references work, feel free to check this article out.

  18. Hello Sevtlana,

    I saved an excel sheet from the "searchmyfiles" app. It's an inquiry for duplicate file names on all my drives. I've sorted them by duplication number which range from 1 to over 1000 files that have duplicates. I have some files that have been duplicated up to 10 times. I'd like to highlight every other duplication number (NOT every other row). Can you help me with that, please?

  19. I have a financial sheet that I use, once the check has cleared the bank I highlight the cell. I am trying to figure out the format that will change the total in the summed cell when I highlight the payees cell but not change the value (amount) within the cell (once highlighted the value becomes zero, but leaves the amount in the cell), reflecting the amount that was paid, but affecting the end state balance.

  20. Old formula is
    =sumifs('m.16-1'

  21. I want fill colour in cell by formula, but I have different sheet of issue from and final report sheet separator in another sheet but I one worksheet
    And I have all ready one formula in.final report sheet.
    So help me how I can make formula

  22. 1.Customer 2.Description 3.Status 4.Del Date 5.Billing date 6.Order Val 7.Comments

    Hi

    Points 1-7 are my coloumns. I want to apply a rule whereby the status on each specific row will change the colour of more than one cell in that row (2,3,4,5,6), like for instance, if job complete the row should turn green.
    However my limitation at the moment is that I can only apply this one row at a time whereas I need a rule that can apply to the specified rows...

    I hope that I am making sense.

  23. Hi, I am formatting our worksheet and each values must change color depending on it, so I was wondering how to apply the conditional formatting on over 2000 rows.

  24. Hi,
    I am trying to make a planning with excel.

    I have set up the following conditional formatting:

    =AND($D$3>=$B$4;$D$3=$B$4;$E$3<=$C$4)

    I don't want to set up this rule for every single cell so I will have 200 rules eventually.

    Is there a way to dynamically applie this one rule to all the necessary cells? like doing with the value of some cells if you want to quickly fill those cells. Then you can just fill in 2 values and pull the values across the necessary cells and Excel will automatically fill in the right values.

  25. Thank you Svetlana and everyone. Your Q&A have helped me in learning more about Excel.

  26. Hi, I hope you can assist. I am needing something like this done in a VBA macro.

    I am using both 2007 and 2010 version of MS Office Excel.

    Problem: Store POS does not have Low Inventory Report built in (free/cheap version). We download a CSV file with 3 fields: Item, Category and Balance. We then manually add 3 more fields: Previous Balance, Quantity Received and Quantity Sold. The CSV is then filtered to copy only items we still carry to a new workbook (old items can not deleted from the POS Inventory). A macro is used to separate items based on category name to different worksheets.

    We have over 100 different categories, each category has a different number of items. Item Name (Column A) cell is colored based on Quantity on Hand and Number Sold. If Quantity on hand = 0, cell is Red, If Quantity on hand = 1 or 2, cell is colored yellow; if Sold = 1 - 3 then cell is colored Blue and if Sold is higher than 3 then the cell is Green. If The Quantity is 0-2 AND the Sold is 1 or higher, then the text will be bold and colored the Sold colors (Blue or Green) while the cell is still filled with the On Hand Colors (Red or Yellow).

    Doing the conditional formatting manually for every worksheet takes me a couple hours. Is it possible to use a VBA macro to do all worksheets for all conditioning? If you can show the script to get me started, I would appreciate it. I can do a script for a single worksheet when the range (number of rows) is known and also for a single condition. If possible, 1 macro to do all worksheets (total number of worksheets can change) and more than one condition.

  27. Hi I need to use this example but it wont work for me. Im using it to look at the status of work so i have 4 statuses complete, active, Not Confirmed and Cancelled. I want to change each row colour when i change the status of the job. I have tried your example as per above highlighting all my area so its highlighted from A6:P31 then created a new rule with the formula =SEARCH("Active",$F$6)=0 it works but changes every row on the sheet. I want it to just change that one row? what am i doing wrong? Row F wil always be my status bar and i have about 100 rows of work im looking at?

    Hope you can help.

    Elaine

  28. Hello - I'm trying to use conditional formatting to check row by row within a range (A:G) for any blank cells. If there is a blank cell in the range I want to highlight the cell for that specific row in column A red. I want formula / conditional formatting to be able to do this for each row through the entire spreadsheet.

    Example for Row 2: If cell C2 is blank within range A2:G2, I want to highlight cell A2 red.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated.

  29. Thanks, SEARCH helped solve my problem statement.

  30. Hi, I need help with excel.

    I have database of my daily work tasks which includes dates in one column and in the other columns I have other datas that are mostly in text. Now I need an excel code/function that can provide a "summary of tasks" that I did by each date listed and a respective count of how many tasks were completed on that specific dates. For example if only 10-december, I have 4 entries of work and on 11th-december, I had 14 then the excel should count and prepare a summary of my work like this

    Summary of Work

    Dates Tasks Completed

    10-december 4
    11-december 14

    If somebody can prepare a format or a code and post it, I would really appreciate it. Please note, the excel code should also reflect any changes I make on the dates or counts. For example, if I find that the date was incorrect and I change it to 12-december, the summary should reflect that right away.
    thank you.

  31. I want colored two different values with two different colors which is in one cell. How I can?

  32. I have a rather large worksheet with workorders that need to be completed. For each workorder a specific skillcode is recquired. On a daily basis, I have a set amount of available hours for production. I've added a column that adds the amount of workorders that can be completed on a day until I've hit the maximum for that day. In the following cell it starts to calculate again.

    Example: I have 60 hours available, and in column D I have the amount of hours per workorder. Column E has an if statement that says when the hours in D have hit 60 hours, start the calculation from the start: E19 = 59.2 hours -> E20= 6 (the required time for this new workorder). I want to format the worksheet in such a way that each time it starts the calculation again, a different color is used (E2:E19 = blue, then E20:26 = red and so on). Can you perhaps help me out on this?

  33. Oh my goodness! Do you know how long I was trying to figure this out??? Thank you so much... The help function in Excel did not help me and I'm pretty good with Excel...SMH...Thank you!

  34. Hi!

    Not sure if this will make sense but I NEED HELP!! I have a list of 60 names and their leave. When a cell is populated I need it to turn yellow, when it goes over 15% of the column being populated I want it to turn Red.

    I think this is possible with Conditional Formatting but I can't seem to get it to work. Obviously I might be way out but I have created the formula at the bottom of the column so I have one rule to say the cell is less than 64 turn it yellow then a second rule that says if it is greater than 64 turn the cell red. It just doesn't colour any cell.

    Is there anything you can help with?

  35. Hello Svetlana,

    I would like to format a cell color based on two other cells meeting certain conditional formats. To be specific I have a cell (G16) that will be highlighted in a color based on the value in that cell not being between the values in C117 and D117. I have a second cell (H16) that will be highlighted if the calculated value in that cell is not between C118 and D118.
    If the conditions in both G16 and H16 are met, then I want to highlight cell I16 in a second color. Is there a way to do this?

  36. Hello,

    Is there anyway to highlight a row based on a cell value that's on another sheet in the same workbook?

    for instance, cell B7 in Sheet1 contains a decimal value (in this case, it is 5). And the condition is, highlight the range A2:B6 in Sheet 2. But the cell B7 in Sheet1 is dynamic. Hence if i enter 7, the range A2:B8 in sheet 2 must be highlighted.

    Is this achievable through conditional formatting?

  37. Hello,

    I have created a live-spreadsheet for Orders with 'Date Required' and 'ETA' columns in them.

    I would like the dates in the 'ETA' to be highlighted if they are greater than the dates stated in the 'Date Required' column.

    I can get this to work on individual Rows through Conditional Formatting but cannot repeat the process on a large scale through-out the entire sheet.

    Please let me know if you can help.

  38. Hi,

    Thanks for such a useful page.

    I want to extract only year from the date column feed with different formats, but unable to do so.

    Please help me with this.

    Best Regards,
    Zohaib

  39. Hi
    I wondered if you might be able to help.
    I have a spreadsheet on which I detail all my spending each month with a column for each shop/supermarket.
    In A1 I have today's date with the formula / =TODAY() /
    In Column A I have the date and have done conditional formatting so that this cell is highlighted if it is the same date as A1.
    What I really want to do is highlight (change the colour of) the whole row when the date in column A = today's date.
    Thank you
    Regards
    Chris

  40. Hi Svetlana
    Thank you very much for doing this, very clear and easy to follow, much appreciated.

    Thanks

    Dave

  41. Hi Svetlana,

    Can you help please?

    I have seen above the following

    "I have one column (J) which is "date of sale". This only has a value if a sale has been made. So, I want to highlight all the rows which have a date in column J (essentially highlighting all the rows where I have made a sale, and leaving the ones where the sale has not been closed blank) with your response of Try selecting the whole table and then create the formatting rule with this formula =$J2"" (assuming that your table has headers). It will color all the rows that have any value in column J."

    I have a similar issue but its for 2 columns (E and H) but a date will only be in on or the other - never both. hope this makes sense.

    would really appreciated your help please :-)

    i am trying to make this work with dates in either column e or f

    Sorry to trouble you, but I cannot make this work for a date!
    I have one column (J) which is "date of sale". This only has a value if a sale has been made. So, I want to highlight all the rows which have a date in column J (essentially highlighting all the rows where I have made a sale, and leaving the ones where the sale has not been closed blank)
    Can you help?
    Thanks!

  42. Thank you
    I found the solution.
    =ISNUMBER(Search("p1",S3))
    This could be applied to all payments.

  43. Payment 1 Payment 2 Payment 3 Payment 4 Paid 1, 2, 3, 4

  44. Hi!
    Thank you for this site that produces excellent information.
    I would request your help!
    I have a table and one cell will contain (Paid 1, Paid 2, Paid 3).Each will be written after one month. These refer to other cells of payments. (payment 1) (Payment 2) and Payment 3). So I need each cell of payment to be highlighted if I write (Paid 1, Paid 2, Paid 3) in the last cell.
    Appreciate your help
    Imad

  45. if a column contains "any date" i want to fill a color to the entire row in excel

    1. Hello Naseef,

      Select the rows that you wan to highlight, and create a conditional formatting rule with the below formula, where A2 is the top-most cell with a date:
      =ISNUMBER($A2)

  46. very helpful thank you!

  47. I am sorry. My question was a bit confusion. Here is the revised one: Are we only able to check one column at once? Is it possible to check entire worksheet for a keyword(s) and then highlight all the rows have hit in different columns?

    1. Hi Mike,

      I don't know a way to check the entire worksheet. However, if there are a limited number of columns to check, you can use the following formula to highlight rows that contain a specific text in any of the concatenated columns:
      =SEARCH("text",$A1&$B1&$C1&$D1)>0

      Where 1 is the top row that you want to highlight.

  48. Are we able to check one column as once? Is it possible to check entire worksheet for a keyword(s) and then highlight all the rows have hit in different columns?

  49. Hi,
    I have a table where the text in column N is either "Live" or "Off-hired" and I would like the whole row to be highlighted whenever "live" occurs. I have tried a number of the formulas above but I can't seem to get it to work.
    please can you help?
    Thank you very much :)

  50. Is it possible to insert icon sets from different sheet in the same workbook

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