What is Conditional Formatting?

Conditional formatting allows you to select one or more cells, and create rules for when and how those cells are formatted.
You can control the cell font, fill colour and border setting, based on the selected cell's contents, or based on the contents of another cell.
If the rules (conditions) that you specified are met, then the formatting is applied.

For example, you can set conditional formatting so that a cell turns blue or green, based on its value. NOTE: In Excel 2003, and earlier versions, you can have up to 3 rules for each cell. (Note: To apply more than 3 conditional formas in a cell in Excel 2003 and earlier versions, you would need to use programming.)

Apply Conditional Formatting to a Cell

In this example, you'll set conditional formats so that a cell:

turns blue if it contains a value higher than 75 and
turns green if it contains a value lower than 50.

Follow these steps to apply conditional formatting to cells:

1. Select the cells to be formatted. In this example, cells B2:B4 are selected.
2. On the menu bar, choose Format>Conditional Formatting...

3. In the Conditional Formatting dialog box, leave the first drop-down
box set to Cell Value Is
4. In the second drop-down box, choose one of the operators.
In this example, choose 'greater than'
5. In the text box, type a number or a cell reference.
In this example, type the value you want to check -- 75.

6. Click the Format button
7. On the Patterns tab, select a colour for the conditional formatting. In this example, a medium blue fill colour is selected.
You can also choose a Font format or a cell Border.
8. Click OK, to close the Format Cells dialog box.

9. If you want to add another conditional format, click the Add button.
10. Repeat steps 3 to 8, using the values and colours that you want for
the second conditional format.
11. Click OK, to return to the worksheet.