Need to have a sound played if a certain condition is met? It is rather easy to do if you use a user-defined function to actually create the sound.Ĭonditional formatting is a great feature in Excel. This tip examines the different ways you can specify a condition that differentiates between an integer and non-integer in a cell. The hardest part of using conditional formatting is identifying which condition should be used. The conditional formatting capabilities of Excel are very helpful when you want to call attention to different values according to criteria you specify. Do it wrong, and you won't get the result you expect. When you compare dates in a conditional formatting rule, you need to be careful how you put your comparisons together. Here's some ways around the difficulties.Ĭonditionally Formatting for Multiple Date Comparisons If you want to apply a conditional format to data imported into Excel from Access, you may run into some difficulties related to how that data is interpreted. Excel allows you to apply conditional formatting in a PivotTable, but the outcome of that application may not be satisfactory when the table is refreshed.Ĭonditional Formatting with Data Imported from Access Here's how you can use conditional formatting to highlight which phone numbers aren't within the parameters you need.Ĭonditional formatting is very powerful, and you can use it to dynamically adjust how your data looks. This tip explains how you can use conditional formatting to change the color of cells based upon how close a particular date is to today's date.Ĭonditional Formatting for Errant Phone NumbersĬonditional formatting can be used to draw attention to all sorts of data based upon the criteria you specify. It is referred to as conditional formatting and described in this tip.Ĭonditional Formatting Based on Date ProximityĬonditional formatting can be used to draw your attention to certain cells based on what is within those cells. One of the powerful features of Excel is the ability to format a cell based on the contents of that cell or another. You may need to use this tool to tell the difference between cells that are empty or cells that contain zero values.
This tip examines how to check if either text or numbers have been entered into a cell.Ĭonditional Formats that Distinguish Blanks and ZeroesĬonditional formatting is a great tool. There are a couple of ways you can choose to do so, however.Ĭonditional Format that Checks for Data TypeĬonditional formatting can be used to highlight cells that contain the improper type of data for your needs.
If you have a data table in a worksheet, and you want to shade various rows based on whatever is in the first column, then you can use Excel's conditional formatting capabilities.
You can write your own macro to do the formatting change, however.Ĭhanging Shading when a Column Value Changes
Tired of the default colors that Excel uses to display the row and column coordinates? You can modify the colors, but only if you make the change in Windows itself.Ĭhanging Font Face and Size ConditionallyĬonditional formatting does not allow you to change the typeface and font size used in a cell. If you want your users to answer your questions in a specific order, you can use both data validation and conditional formatting, as described in this tip. It is not unusual to use Excel to gather the answers to users' questions.