Conditional Formatting Entire Row

Conditional Formatting kills two birds with one stone! ( Not that I would like to be an efficient hunter)! First of all it makes your Spreadsheet look pretty and more importantly it provides you visual effect on which you can make instant decisions.

A time comes when you want the entire rows to change the colour based values on certain cells.

In our example above let's say that we want to make all the rows specific colours

1. Select the cells that you want to format.

2. In the menu bar, choose Format > Conditional Formatting...

3. In the Conditional Formatting dialog box, from the first drop-down list, choose Formula Is

4. In the text box, enter a formula that refers to the active cell in the selection. In this example, we selected A3:K27, and cell A3 is the active cell. So, in the formula, we'll refer to cell B3, because it's in the active row.

In this example, the formula is: =$E3<100000

In this example, we use an absolute reference to column E ($E), to ensure that the conditional formatting in all columns refers to the value in column E.

If we simply use a relative reference (E), the formula will be adjusted in each column, and won't work properly. Each cell will refer to the cell to its right, instead of refering to the cell in column E. Therefore we have to fix the Column E but not the Row 3 as we want that to change relatively.

5. Click the Format button. 6. In the Format Cells dialog box, select the formatting options that you want. You can choose Font format, Fill format and a Border format. 7. Click OK to close the Format Cells dialog box. 8. If you want to add more conditions, click the Add button, and repeat steps 3-8, for that condition. 9. Click OK, to close the Conditional Formatting dialog box. The final screen should look similar to the picture below.

I hope you benefited from this topic.

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Restrict data on cells for Invalid Data Using Data Validation!

Have you ever had a situation where you send a file or share a file with someone and they enter data that they weren't supposed to. Or may be enter too much data on a cell?

In Excel you have a feature called Data Validation that will help you in setting up the spreadsheet in such as way that users will not be able to enter any invalid data.

Looking at the following screen you can figure out that we need to restrict data on certain cells depending on the heading:

1. In the Initial field (Column) we want user to enter NO MORE than 1 character


2. In the Surname we want the data to be restricted to 15 characters only


3. DOB field shoudl only contain dates between 01/01/1948 and 31/01/98 only


4. No. of Laptops sold should be a Whole number and decimals should not be alowed

In order to restrict the cells with the above mentioned restrictions we need to highlight (select) the the relevant data.

• So we select A2: A19.


• From the menu bar we select Data > Validation...

• Click on the Drop down arrow for the Allow: and then choose Text Length
• From the Drop down of Data: choose Equal to
• In the length box type in 1 as we need users to ONLY enter one character in this field. Please note that there are many other options such as Greater than or equal to, Less than or Equal to , etc..
• Press OK.

I hope you get the idea how it works.

Following are the options that are available for various validations:

• Whole Number: This is if you wanted user to enter ONLY whole numbers and not Decimals. In our example it will be No. of Laptops field as you can not sell 1.5 laptops. Once you have mentioned whole number you can again set it to be between two values or greater than, less than, Equal to, etc...
• Decimal places: is where you want user to enter certain values meeting your specific criteria
• List: You can have drop down arrow appear in the cells that can show you various entries you would like to appear in the cells. You just have to enter the data separating them by a comma. In our example the Dept. field will have this type of data Validation.
• Date: This is for restricting cells to contain the dates meeting the specific requirements that you enter in the data validation dialog box.

You can also have specific messages appear on the screen if the user don't follow the guidelines that you set in the data validation dialog box.

For further details on this topic as well as other interesting topics please refer to the MOUSE Training link

Thank you for visiting and hope this topic was helpful!

Raj

Showing Millions in M on Cells

Ever wondered how you could have a figure such as 2,265,450 displayed as 2.26 M?

It is very simple to do.

1. Select all the cells that contain the values
2. Choose Format > Cells...
3. Ensure that you have Number tab selected
4. Choose Custom on the left hand side
5. Type the following in the Type: box (You can copy and paste it if you're feeling a bit lazy :)
[>=1000000]0.00,,"M"

And WALLAW! You get what you want! If you do want to see more numbers you can use the Increase and Decrease decimal buttons!

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Hope you have a nice day and thanks for visiting my blog!!

Conditional Formatting has been revamped in Excel 2007

Hi everyone

Ever wondered how you can get boring numerical data to be vibrant i.e. how can you make data like the one on the left hand to look like the one on the right hand side?

It is very simple and effective way to represent your data as mentioned above.

Please follow these steps:

• Highlight the cells that you wish to apply the conditional Formatting to


• On the Home Tab on the ribbon choose Condional Formatting and you will see various options available

• Chooose any relevant options. Following are some of the options:

• You can change the settings of the Conditional formatting such as the your specific criteria, Icons or bar only, etc... by choosing Conditional Formatting and then Manage Rules... and chosing Edit Rule... button on the Manage Rules Dialog box


• If you wish to clear all teh Conditional Formatting Rules from specific cells then you can choose Conditional Formatting > Clear Rules > Clear rules from Selected cells or you can clear them from the entire sheet


• If you have applied various rules such as Data bar and Icon Sets and wish to delete one of the rules then you need to go to the manage rule dialog box and then select the rule and choose the Delete rule button.

If you found this to be helpful then please download your Free copy of the Excel Advanced Manual from www.mousetraining.co.uk/training-manuals/Excel2007adv.pdf

Cheers

Raj