3.5 Conditional formatting
The eye lands on the number that matters, without you highlighting it by hand.
Before:02. Excel — Formulas & FunctionsUnlocks:05. Excel — Charts & Dashboards
Conditional formatting makes the sheet highlight itself — top values, overdue dates, whole rows matching a condition — so the reader's eye lands where it should without hand-painted colour. The topic includes formula-driven rules, which are the powerful half, and managing rule order when rules overlap. It sits with the analysis topics because highlighting is analysis made visible. The common confusion is anchoring in a formula-based rule: one misplaced dollar sign highlights the wrong rows, which connects straight back to the references topic. Restraint is the design lesson — three colours, not eleven.
Work through these
Cell rules, top/bottom rules, data bars, colour scales, icon sets
Rules that colour cells by value, by rank, or by a scale, plus bars and icons that show magnitude in place. Choosing among them is about what the reader should notice first.
Formula-driven rules and highlighting whole rows
A rule driven by a formula can highlight an entire row based on something in one column, which is what most people actually want. It is the step up from the built-in options.
Managing rule order and precedence
When several rules apply to the same cell, the order decides what you see, and one rule can stop the others being applied. Managing that list is what fixes puzzling results.
Restraint: three colours, not eleven
Formatting that highlights everything highlights nothing. The advice here is a small number of colours used consistently, which is a design decision rather than a technical one.
Practice file
- xl-07-dashboard-starter.xlsx
Clean data plus an empty dashboard sheet with the five questions written on it.
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