/en/excel/charts/content/
Let's say you have a worksheet with thousands of rows of data. It would be extremely difficult to see patterns and trends just from examining the raw information. Similar to charts and sparklines, conditional formatting provides a way to visualize data and make worksheets easier to understand.
Watch the video below to learn more about conditional formatting in Excel.
Conditional formatting allows you to automatically apply formatting—such as colors, icons, and data bars—to one or more cells based on the cell value. To do this, you'll need to create a conditional formatting rule. For example, a conditional formatting rule might be: If the value is less than $2000, color the cell red. By applying this rule, you'd be able to quickly see which cells contain values less than $2000.
In our example, we have a worksheet containing sales data, and we'd like to see which salespeople are meeting their monthly sales goals. The sales goal is $4000 per month, so we'll create a conditional formatting rule for any cells containing a value higher than 4000.
You can apply multiple conditional formatting rules to a cell range or worksheet, allowing you to visualize different trends and patterns in your data.
Excel has several predefined styles—or presets—you can use to quickly apply conditional formatting to your data. They are grouped into three categories:
Click Manage Rules to edit or delete individual rules. This is especially useful if you've applied multiple rules to a worksheet.
/en/excel/comments-and-coauthoring/content/