by The tutorial explains all main features of Excel conditional formatting with examples. You will learn how to do conditional formatting in any version of Excel, efficiently use preset rules or create new ones, edit, copy and clear formatting.
Excel conditional formatting is a really powerful feature when it comes to applying different formats to data that meets certain conditions. It can help you highlight the most important information in your spreadsheets and spot variances of cell values with a quick glance.
Many users, especially beginners, find it intricate and obscure. If you feel intimidated and uncomfortable with this feature, please don't! In fact, conditional formatting in Excel is very straightforward and easy to use, and you will make sure of this in just 5 minutes when you have finished reading this tutorial :)
What is conditional formatting in Excel?
Excel Conditional Formatting is used to apply certain formatting to data that meets one or more conditions. Just like usual cell formatting, it lets you highlight and differentiate your data in various ways by changing cells' fill color, font color, border styles, etc. The difference is that it is more flexible and dynamic - when the data changes, conditional formats get updated automatically to reflect the changes.
Conditional formatting can be applied to individual cells or entire rows based on the value of the formatted cell itself or another cell. To conditionally format your data, you can utilize preset rules such as Color Scales, Data Bars and Icon Sets or create custom rules where you define when and how the selected cells should be highlighted.
Where is conditional formatting in Excel?
In all versions of Excel 2010 through Excel 365, conditional formatting resides in the same place: Home tab > Styles group > Conditional formatting.
Now that you know where to find conditional formatting in Excel, let's move on and see how you can leverage it in your daily work to make more sense of the project you are currently working on.
For our examples, we will use Excel 365, which seems to be the most popular version these days. However, the options are essentially the same in all Excels, so you won't have any problems with following no matter what version is installed on your computer.
How to use conditional formatting in Excel
To truly leverage the capabilities of conditional format, you need to learn how to utilize various rule types. The good news is that whatever rule you are going to apply, it defines the two key things:
- What cells are covered by the rule.
- What condition should be met.
So, here's how you use Excel conditional formatting:
- In your spreadsheet, select the cells you want to format.
- On the Home tab, in the Styles group, click Conditional Formatting.
- From a set of inbuilt rules, choose the one that suits your purpose.
As an example, we are going to highlight values less than 0, so we click Highlight Cells Rules > Less Than…
- In the dialog window that appears, enter the value in the box on the left and choose the desired format from the drop-down list on the right (default is Light Red Fill with Dark Red Text).
When done, Excel will show you a preview of formatted data. If you are happy with the preview, click OK.
In a similar manner, you can use any other rule type that is more appropriate for your data, such as:
- Greater than or equal to
- Between two values
- Text that contains specific words or characters
- Date occurring in a certain range
- Duplicate values
- Top/bottom N numbers
How to use a preset rule with custom formatting
If none of the predefined formats suits you, you can choose any other colors for cells' background, font or borders. Here's how:
- In the preset rule dialog box, from the drop-down list on the right, pick Custom Format…
- In the Format Cells dialog window, switch between the Font, Border and Fill tabs to choose the desired font style, border style and background color, respectively. As you do this, you will immediately see a preview of the selected format. When done, click OK.
- Click OK one more time to close the previous dialog window and apply the custom formatting of your choice.
Tips:
- If you want more colors than the standard palette provides, click the More Colors… button on the Fill or Font tab.
- If you wish to apply a gradient background color, click the Fill Effects button on the Fill tab and choose the desired options.
How to create a new conditional formatting rule
If none of the preset rules meets your needs, you can create a new one from scratch. To get it done, follow these steps:
- Select the cells to be formatted and click Conditional Formatting > New Rule.
- In the New Formatting Rule dialog box that opens, select the rule type.
For example, to format cells with percent change less than 5% in either direction, we choose Format only cells that contain, and then configure the rule like shown in the screenshot below:
- Click the Format… button, and then choose the Fill or/and Font color you want.
- Click OK twice to close both dialog windows and your conditional formatting is done!
Excel conditional formatting based on another cell
In the previous examples, we highlighted cells based on "hardcoded" values. However, in some cases it makes more sense to base your condition on a value in another cell. The advantage of this approach is that irrespective of how the cell value changes in future, your formatting will adjust automatically to respond to the change.
As an example, let's highlight prices in column B that are greater than the threshold price in cell D2. To accomplish this, the steps are:
- Click Conditional formatting> Highlight Cells Rules > Greater Than…
- In the dialog box that pops up, place the cursor in the text box on the left (or click the Collapse Dialog icon), and select cell D2.
- When done, click OK.
As a result, all the prices higher than the value in D2 will get highlighted with the selected color:
That is the simplest case of conditional formatting based on another cell. More complex scenarios may require the use of formulas. And you can find several examples of such formulas along with the step-by-step instructions here:
Apply multiple conditional formatting rules to same cells
When using conditional formats in Excel, you are not limited to only one rule per cell. You can apply as many rules as your business logic requires.
For example, you can create 3 rules to highlight prices higher than $105 in red, higher than $100 in orange, and higher than $99 in yellow. For the rules to work correctly, you need to arrange them in the right order. If the "greater than 99" rule is placed first, then only the yellow formatting will be applied because the other two rules won't have a chance to be triggered - obviously, any number that is higher than 100 or 105 is also higher than 99 :)
To re-arrange the rules, this is what you need to do:
- Select any cell in your dataset covered by the rules.
- Open the Rules Manager by clicking Conditional Formatting > Manage Rules…
- Click the rule that needs to be applied first, and then use the upward arrow to move it to top. Do the same for the second-in-priority rule.
- Select the Stop If True check box next to all but the last rule because you do not want the subsequent rules to be applied when the prior condition is met.
What is Stop if True in Excel conditional formatting?
The Stop If True option in conditional formatting prevents Excel from processing other rules when a condition in the current rule is met. In other words, if two or more rules are set for the same cell and Stop if True is enabled for the first rule, the subsequent rules are disregarded after the first rule is activated.
In the example above, we have already used this option to ignore subsequent rules when the first-in-priority rule applies. That usage is quite evident. And here are another couple of examples where the use of the Stop If True function is not so obvious but extremely helpful:
How to edit Excel conditional formatting rules
To make some changes to an existing rule, proceed in this way:
- Select any cell to which the rule applies and click Conditional Formatting > Manage Rules…
- In the Rules Manager dialog box, click the rule you want to modify, and then click the Edit Rule… button.
- In the Edit Formatting Rule dialog window, make the required changes and click OK to save the edits.
That dialog window looks very similar to the New Formatting Rule dialog box used for creating a new rule, so you won't have any difficulties with it.
Tip. If you don't see the rule you want to edit, then select This Worksheet from the Show formatting rules for drop-down list at the top of the Rules Manager dialog box. This will display the list of all the rules in your worksheet.
How to copy Excel conditional formatting
To apply a conditional format you've created earlier to other data, you won't need to re-create a similar rule from scratch. Simply use Format Painter to copy the existing conditional formatting rule(s) to another data set. Here's how:
- Click any cell with the formatting you want to copy.
- Click Home > Format Painter. This will change the mouse pointer to a paintbrush.
Tip. To copy the formatting to multiple non-contiguous cells or ranges, double-click Format Painter.
- To paste the copied formatting, click on the first cell and drag the paintbrush down to the last cell in the range you want to format.
- When done, press Esc to stop using the paintbrush.
- Select any cell in your new dataset, open the Rules Manager and check the copied rule(s).
Note. If the copied conditional formatting uses a formula, you may need to adjust cell references in the formula after copying the rule.
How to delete conditional formatting rules
I've saved the easiest part for last :) To delete a rule, you can either:
- Open the Conditional Formatting Rules Manager, select the rule and click the Delete Rule button.
- Select the range of cells, click Conditional Formatting > Clear Rules and choose the option that fits your needs.
This is how you do conditional formatting in Excel. Hopefully, these very simple rules we created were helpful to get a grasp of the basics. Below, you can find a few more tutorials that can help you understand the inner mechanics and expand conditional formatting in your spreadsheets far beyond its traditional uses.
Practice workbook for download
Excel conditional formatting - examples (.xlsx file)
314 comments
Hello,
I am trying to create a training document. The document will contain several employees, each having a date they were certified, and then a date that they will be due to re-certify. I am trying to figure out the formulas that I would need to input in order to change the row either red=overdue, yellow=due within 90 days, and green=91days>. The formula that seems to be closest to what I need is Rule1=datedif($A2,Today(),"d")>=1:89,Rule2=datedif($A2,today(),"d")>=90:275, and Rule3=datedif($A2,today(),"d")>=276 but for some reason the rules are keeping all three colors from showing. could you please point me in the right direction and thank you for your time.
Hello, Ian,
Please try the following formulas:
Rule1=AND(DATEDIF($A2,TODAY(),"d")>=1,DATEDIF($A2,TODAY(),"d")<=89)
Rule2=AND(DATEDIF($A2,TODAY(),"d")>=90,DATEDIF($A2,TODAY(),"d")<=275)
Rule3=DATEDIF($A2,TODAY(),"d")>=276
Hope it will help you.
Hi,
I want to keep conditional formatting in dates for vehicles record. when i enter the current it should check last 6 month records. if it's there will change automatically.
Hi all,
My problem is probably very basic in comparison with all of yours but i am not an excel bizz and I couldn't find the resolution in the above comments or tutorial...
At work i have created a spreadsheet for all our new clients and all of the checks and ID they have top provide etc. before we can start working for them. When all of the checks have been passed and they have supplied sufficient information about themselves for our records the date of completion is put in the end column. How can I make this cell with the date in turn red after a year of the date? As this is when we have to request new up-to-date information from them... Any help would be greatly appreciated asap!
Privet vsem!
Sorry for disturbing you, but I am a newbie to Excel fomatting and need some help. I have an excel sheet where I keep the profiles of people(name, last name, performance, ....). I do have multiple copies of the same person(let's call him Andrey Goncharov) on my sheet as I am copying it from another source (every week). So last week I marked Andrey's "Performance" column as a "Top Performer". When I copy (from a different source) again this week, if there is Andrey Goncharov, I want Excel to auto-fill the "Performance" column of a new copy as a "Top Performer", because I already have done before for that person. I hope I could explain my issue.
Thanks a lot for your help and support, you are a wonderful team :).
Ben
Hello, Ben,
I'm sorry, it's difficult to come up with any suggestion, since we don't know how your data is stored and there are too many peculiarities that can affect the way your task should be solved.
If you still require our assistance, feel free to send us your example workbook with the source information and the result you want to get to support@ablebits.com. Please include the link to this comment into the email.
Our technical specialist will take a look at your task and try to help.
Hi
I have table shown below
no low high b/s present
01 105 125 b 105
02 252 183 s 183
03 453 522 s 522
In need a formula for present column in such that if b/s column contain "b" then present column value should be low column otherwise if b/s column contain "s" then the value of present cell should be high . could you please give me the formula for the above case
I cant seem to work this out, I know its simple but my brain is fried.
I need to use conditional formatting to say Target met if there has been an increase of 5% in 2015 from 2014 and improvement needed if there has not been a 5% increase. Its the % that are confusing me. Thanks
2014
Strongly Agree
A2 0.93
A3 0.97
A4 0.92
A5 0.93
A6 0.95
A7 0.89
A8 0.82
2015
Strongly Agree
A13 0.91
A14 0.91
A15 0.9
A16 0.89
A17 0.88
A18 0.8
A19 0.75
Hi
Im trying to add a conditions into a excel sheet to highlight the cell in chosen colour.
EG
if figure is cell A is equal to or more than 25% of the figure in Cell B, then colour cell A Red, otherwise colour cell A Green.
are you able to help me with a simple formular. I am using excel 2016
thank you
Hello,
Perhaps someone might be able to help me. I'm an intermediate excel user but haven't extended much past simple formulas.
I am working on a project with a column dedicated to using 3-4 single letters to represent different words. Is there a way to conditionally format so a blank column would automatically change the font color given the letter imputed into the cell?
i.e. C=Card, B=Basket, K=Keep Brunch,F=Flowers, N=Nothing
C=orange
K=Blue
B=Purple
N=Red
Thanks so much!
Hello,
I'm trying to conditionally format cells ONLY if the cell does not contain a formula and the cells is >0. I have a data set that pulls data from different places and I want to be able to easily tell when something is hard coded as long as it's greater than zero.
Hello Dear Experts..
I have a table in which I already inserted formula & conditional formatting to get the result.
Example:- In column O3 I have mentioned Expiry Dates & in column P3 I have mentioned =O3-TODAY() & inserted conditional formatting to know remaining days to get expired with Less than value using colour format. (Like, colour to be change as yellow if days remain less than 60 & Red if days remain less than 30) it is working.
But What I want is if the expiry date has not been mention in column O3 then Column P3 should be left blank without any text.
Awaiting for your response
Hello,
you can add IF function to your formula in P3:
=IF(ISBLANK(O3),"",O3-TODAY())
It will remain empty if there's nothing in O3, otherwise calculate the date.
Please read this article to learn why and when IF can be used.
Hope this is what you need.
Yes it's working, Thank you very much
How can we add value of two cell but show in one cell
For exmpl
A1 cell value is 10
B1 cell value is 20 total 30(a1+b1)
But these values calculated in b1 cell not another cell. Plz reply
Hi,
I'm sorry, but it's impossible to show the number AND the sum of numbers in a cell at the same time.
Sir/Mam
I have 2 question.
1:- When I will enter date in shhet2 A2 column then the out put will show in sheet2 B2 column. My B2 column formula is =If(isblank(A2),"Please enter Date",if(isnumber(A2),vlookup(A2,Sheet1!A:C,2,0),"Invalid Date")).
So I want, when will show "PLEASE ENTER DATE" in B2 then the font colour will be GREEN. When "INVALID DATE " will show then the font colour will be RED.And the result of vlookup font colour will show YELLOW.
2:- The second question is- I put the formula in B6 =if(A6="Sun","Ashok,Deepak",if(A6="Mon","Rajesh,Ramesh",if(A6="Tue","Prakash,Dillip",""))).
So I want when the name will show then the font colour will be blue.
so please tell me how to solve it by conditional formating.
Hello Experts..
I have a table in which I already inserted formula & conditional formatting to get the result.
Example:- In column O3 I have mentioned Expiry Dates & in column P3 I have mentioned =O3-TODAY() & inserted conditional formatting to know remaining days to get expired with Less than value using colour format. (Like, colour to be change as yellow if days remain less than 60 & Red if days remain less than 30) it is working.
But What I want is if the expiry date has not mention in column O3 then Column P3 should be blank without anything.
Hello Friends!
I writing the figure 624 in a cell G6 and in cell H6 I writing =G6*1% in this case I got the correct answer, but I intend to get formula for multi figures in h6 like this =g6*1% with the new answer *10% and further with new answer *12% in just a single cell as H6. what I can do for the same. Guide me someone please.
M. Munir
KINDLY IGNORE A1 =.
THANKS
R/MAM,
GOOD NOON,
PL NOTE THAT A1 CELL HAS A VALUE "X", I WANT TO HIGH LIGHT CELL B1 WHEN IT'S VALUE LESS THAN 10% OF CELL A1.
IN FORM OF MATHS
CELL B1 SHOULD BE HIGHLIGHT WHEN
A1 = < A1-(A1*0.1)
HOW CAN I DONE BY CONDITIONING FORMATTING FACILITY?
REGARDS,
MONIK
How do I get excel to calculate the difference in dates in days?
Thank you
Kenny
Hi Kenny,
You can use the DATEDIF function with the "d" unit, as shown in this example:
How to calculate difference between 2 dates in days
I have a training spreadsheet with expiry dates. I want to use traffic lights to turn the cells red, amber or green as they approach the date of expiry compared to todays date, in months. eg due in 12 months or more green, due in 6 months or more amber and less than 6 months red. Is there an easy way to do this in Excel 2010 please. I have formatted the date as eg Jan 2017, Mar 2019 to make it easier. Thanks
Hello,
I've been trying to make this work. I want that every time I have a negative number in column L, the whole row where the number is change the font to red. I can make it work for just one row but when I try to implemented in the worksheet is when I got stuck. In the conditional formatting option I select the "Use a formula..." option. I type =$L:$L<0, But it doesn't work. when I just select a specific cell (i.e. =$L$145), it works but that's not what I am looking for. On the other part I just type the rows I want to be affected by this (=$A:$R,$T:$AD).
Any help regarding this matter, I really appreciate it.
Thank you!
Hi Guys, Can someone help me please.
i need help with an example below.
i want in column x. 13/06/05 , 14/08/16, 25/07/17
in column y i want it to turn red if nothing is filled in a week after the dates in column x.
Can someone please help