Why Conditional Formatting?
When it’s important to “see” certain results on a spreadsheet, try conditional formatting. Some examples: • You have an Excel workbook with grades and you want those below 65 to stand out. • On a budget spreadsheet, when there are negative values they must not be overlooked. • You have an If statement in cell D38 that looks to cell C15 and displays the word “Sell” if C15 is over a certain number, or “Buy” if C15 is below. Your money is dependent on recognizing the data’s dynamics. (Don’t know how to do If statements? The workshop Excel’s Statistical and Logical Functions will show you how.) The following shows a grade book example: : If below 65 is failing then you (and certain students) might be better informed if the spreadsheet looked like this, with conditional formatting: Setting up Conditional Formatting To set up conditional formatting for any set of cells, do this: • Select desired cells. In the above example the range B3:J16 was selected. • Then to the menu command Format, Con
