Conditional formatting is powerful functions in Microsoft excel. it is underutilized function in Microsoft excel.it converts raw data in to manageable data which visualized by different colors and icons. For Example lowest and highest performance area of company which is highlight by simply using conditional formatting. Conditional formatting make your work easy and eye catching wherever data needs
WHAT IS CONDITIONAL FORMATTING??
Conditional formatting is automatic function which highlight the conditional values or rules in different color, icon, font style etc.Manually formatting of data will make errors and other problems while applying conditional formatting makes our work too much easy.
WHY USE CONDITIONAL FORMATTING?
- Conditional formatting highlights the specific data as per condition applied by following rules and values
- you can quickly visualise the data you want as per condition given in different colors
- by using the conditional formatting you can save your precious time because your hefty work is done by a simple condition based formatting
- Conditional formatting is more accurate and precise
HOW TO APPLY CONDITIONAL FORMATTING
1. Select Your Data Range
Highlight the cell where you want to apply formatting
2. Go To Conditional Formating
on the home tab locate Conditional Formatting button in the style group
3. Choose The Rule Type
Highlight the cell rule: Highlight the values greater than less than or equal to a specified value.
Top/Bottom Rules: Highlight the top 10 items, bottom 10 items
Data Bars, color scale, icon sets: use visual aids to represent data trends
Custom Formulas: create advanced rules using excel formulas
4. Set Formatting Options
Define the colors, fonts, or borders for the highlighted cells.
5. Clock Ok
Your selected cell will now reflect the conditional formatting based on your rules
Examples
For a student how much students get more than 80 marks from allt he students than
We have to use conditional formatting
We have this data and we have to find students with 80 or more than 80 marks
Than we use conditional formatting
Step 1 Select the range
Step 2 Click on Conditional Formatting from the Home Tab Style Section
Step 3 Select Highlight Cells Rules than Select Greater than and write 80 and Select color combination you want to highlight
Here We can see that the every students who has more than 80 marks are highlighted
Advanced Tip:
For greater flexibility you can use formulas to define conditional formatting by using New Rules
For that you have to
select the range of data
Got o Conditional Formatting=>New Rules=>Use a formula to determine which cell to format
Enter the formula
Choose your desired formatting
Common pitfalls to avoid
Applying rules to wrong range
Always double check your your selected range to avoid unexpected results
Too many rules:
Overloading your sheet with multiple rules can slow down performance
Prioritize clearly
Not understanding formula based rules:
Formula needs to start with equal to (=) sign and reference the correct cell