In Excel 2007, conditional cell formatting can be used to control the appearance of cells that are based on certain conditions. This can be useful when you want to make sure a cell is displayed when a certain condition is met, or when you want to display different results depending on the value of a cell. To use conditional cell formatting in Excel 2007, open the worksheet and select one of the cells in the sheet. Then click on the Condition button at the bottom of the ribbon ( ). The Condition dialog box will appear, shown below. The Conditions dialog box contains three tabs: The Tabbed tab contains all of the available conditions, while The List tab displays all of the possible values for a given condition. The Values tab displays all of the data that will be used to determine whether or not a given value is true for a cell. Finally, The Results tab displays how many times each value has been tested and whether or not it has been successful. The Tabbed tab contains all of the available conditions. To add a new condition, click on Add Condition and then enter an information field into which you can enter values (e.g., Name). Once you have entered your information, click on OK to add the new condition to your sheet. You can also use this tab to change which conditions are applied to specific cells by clicking on Change Condition and then entering new values into your information field. The List tab displays all of the possible values for a given condition. To add a new value, click on Add Value and then enter an information field into which you can enter values (e.g., Price). Once you have entered your information, click on OK to add the new value to your sheet. You can also use this tab to change which values are displayed for specific cells by clicking on Change Value and then entering new data into your information field. The Results tab displays how many times each value has been tested and whether or not it
Using Conditional Formatting
Once you select the cells that you want to format, you can find the Conditional Formatting drop-down on the ribbon, which gives you loads of pre-set rules to choose from, like color scales.
This will automatically color the items based on the range they are in…
You can also choose to use icons instead:
Reminds me of that commercial… more bars in more places…
You can also create your own rule to color only cells that fit within a certain range, or greater than a certain number.
This rule will only color cells greater than a certain amount, with the color you specify.
This can be very useful, and you should note that you can apply a second rule to the same range. For instance, I added a second rule that colored items larger than 2000 with green instead of red.
You can even create a completely customized rule by choosing the New Formatting Rule option.
If you’ve applied too many rules and want to start over, just select the cells and use the Clear Rules option to remove all the formatting.
This is one of those really useful features that make Office 2007 a lot better than the prior versions.
