Help with conditional formatting

[kirstypie]

I'm having troubles accomplishing what I wasn't to accomplish with conditional formatting.

Once I have created a rule for one cell, how do I apply that rule to other cells? I don't want to use format painter, because there is other formatting that I don't want to apply. In my mind, you should be able to a highlight a section, see the rules you've set set up for the sheet so far, and just choose that rule to and apply it, but I don't see how to do that. Am I missing something completely obvious?

 

[Joe4]

Conditional Formatting is tied to specific cells, not the whole worksheet.
If you are trying to apply it to a multi-cell range, you have a few options:

1. Highlight one cell, create the Conditional Formatting, and use the Format Painter to apply it to other cells.
This may not work for you. As you noted, if those other cells have other formatting you do not have to overwrite, this wouldn't work for you.

2. Highlight the total range you want to apply the Conditional Formatting to. Then, create the Conditional Formatting as it applies to the first cell in your range. Excel will automatically adjust any formulas (just like when you copy formulas to other cells). Note that you may need to make use of Absolute Cell References in certain places, if you do not want the formulas to shift as they are applied to other cells.
This sounds like it may be the best approach for you.

3. Create a little macro that applies the Conditional Formatting to the selected cell. Then you can select other cells and run it. You can probably use the Macro Recorder to get most of the code you need, though you will probably need to clean it up a little to make it work dynamically.