expos4ever
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2015
- Messages
- 38
Many conditional formatting rules appear that I never explicitly defined. Here is the general pattern of what happens:
1. I define a conditional formatting rule and apply it to a range of cells (generally, a finite, contiguous block of cells in a single column). These rules govern the colour of the cell "fill". For example, I may have a rule that instructs Excel to use red fill for every cell in the first 100 rows of column A that contains the phrase "invalid requirement".
2. Later, I find many versions of that same rule have mysteriously appeared with the property that they apply to a sub-set of the cells I had initially defined as the range for the rule. So, with reference to the example in item 1 above, a rule that turns cell A73 red if it contains the phrase "invalid requirement" appears even though I never defined such a rule but instead defined a rule that should apply to cells A1 through A100 inclusive.
The result is a nightmarish explosion of unwanted rules that apply to individual cells.
I have a theory as to why this is happening: I sometimes copy the contents of a cell to which the rule I initially defined applies and paste it to another cell in that same range. I bet that produces an extra rule.
Any guidelines on how to avoid the unintended generation of rules would be appreciated.
1. I define a conditional formatting rule and apply it to a range of cells (generally, a finite, contiguous block of cells in a single column). These rules govern the colour of the cell "fill". For example, I may have a rule that instructs Excel to use red fill for every cell in the first 100 rows of column A that contains the phrase "invalid requirement".
2. Later, I find many versions of that same rule have mysteriously appeared with the property that they apply to a sub-set of the cells I had initially defined as the range for the rule. So, with reference to the example in item 1 above, a rule that turns cell A73 red if it contains the phrase "invalid requirement" appears even though I never defined such a rule but instead defined a rule that should apply to cells A1 through A100 inclusive.
The result is a nightmarish explosion of unwanted rules that apply to individual cells.
I have a theory as to why this is happening: I sometimes copy the contents of a cell to which the rule I initially defined applies and paste it to another cell in that same range. I bet that produces an extra rule.
Any guidelines on how to avoid the unintended generation of rules would be appreciated.