Conditional formatting, entire row based

Question

I've searched and read through answers related to conditional formatting, but I can't seem to get mine to work, so maybe I'm doing something wrong.

I have a worksheet for work. It contains a list of animals in our shelter. What I'm attempting to do is color the entire row green if they've been adopted (noted by an "X" in column "G"). I've had =$G$2="X" and =$G2="X", but neither work. It'll only color the one row that was active when I set the rule, and when I enter "X" in another row, it does nothing. What am I missing?

Answer 1

=$G1="X"

would be the correct (and easiest) method. Just select the entire sheet first, as conditional formatting only works on selected cells. I just tried it and it works perfectly. You must start at G1 rather than G2 otherwise it will offset the conditional formatting by a row.

Answer 2

Use the "indirect" function on conditional formatting.

1. Select Conditional Formatting
2. Select New Rule
3. Select "Use a Formula to determine which cells to format"
4. Enter the Formula, =INDIRECT("g"&ROW())="X"
5. Enter the Format you want (text color, fill color, etc).
6. Select OK to save the new format
7. Open "Manage Rules" in Conditional Formatting
8. Select "This Worksheet" if you can't see your new rule.
9. In the "Applies to" box of your new rule, enter =$A$1:$Z$1500 (or however wide/long you want the conditional formatting to extend depending on your worksheet)

For every row in the G column that has an X, it will now turn to the format you specified. If there isn't an X in the column, the row won't be formatted.

You can repeat this to do multiple row formatting depending on a column value. Just change either the g column or x specific text in the formula and set different formats.

For example, if you add a new rule with the formula, =INDIRECT("h"&ROW())="CAR", then it will format every row that has CAR in the H Column as the format you specified.

Answer 3

To set Conditional Formatting for an ENTIRE ROW based on a single cell you must ANCHOR that single cell's column address with a "$", otherwise Excel will only get the first column correct. Why?

Because Excel is setting your Conditional Format for the SECOND column of your row based on an OFFSET of columns. For the SECOND column, Excel has now moved one column to the RIGHT of your intended rule cell, examined THAT cell, and has correctly formatted column two based on a cell you never intended.

Simply anchor the COLUMN portion of your rule cell's address with "$", and you will be happy

For example: You want any row of your table to highlight red if the last cell of that row does not equal 1.

Select the entire table (but not the headings) "Home" > "Conditional Formatting" > "Manage Rules..." > "New Rule" > "Use a formula to determine which cells to format"

Enter: "=$T3<>1" (no quotes... "T" is the rule cell's column, "3" is its row) Set your formatting Click Apply.

Make sure Excel has not inserted quotes into any part of your formula... if it did, Backspace/Delete them out (no arrow keys please).

Conditional Formatting should be set for the entire table.

Answer 4

You want to apply a custom formatting rule. The "Applies to" field should be your entire row (If you want to format row 5, put in =$5:$5. The custom formula should be =IF($B$5="X", TRUE, FALSE), shown in the example below.

Answer 5

Use RC addressing. So, if I want the background color of Col B to depend upon the value in Col C and apply that from Rows 2 though 20:

Steps:

1. Select R2C2 to R20C2

2. Click on Conditional Formatting

3. Select "Use a formula to determine what cells to format"

4. Type in the formula: =RC[1] > 25

5. Create the formatting you want (i.e. background color "yellow")

6. Applies to: Make sure it says: =R2C2:R20C2

** Note that the "magic" takes place in step 4 ... using RC addressing to look at the value one column to the right of the cell being formatted. In this example, I am checking to see if the value of the cell one column to the right of the cell being formatting contains a value greater than 25 (note that you can put pretty much any formula here that returns a T/F value)

Answer 6

In my case I wanted to compare values in cells of column E with Cells in Column G

Highlight the selection of cells to be checked in column E.

Select Conditional Format: Highlight cell rules Select one of the choices in my case it was greater than. In the left hand field of pop up use =indirect("g"&row()) where g was the row I was comparing against.

Now the row you are formatting will highlight based on if it is greater than the selection in row G

This works for every cell in Column E compared to cell in Column G of the selection you made for column E.

If G2 is greater than E2 it formats

G3 is greater than E3 it formats etc