MS Excel - conditional formatting by comparing another cell

February 22, 2023
DD Planet

Conditional formatting is a useful tool in MS Excel. When it comes to applying it where formatting happens because of comparing a cell to another cell, the user may not find it easy. For example, you wish to apply conditional formatting if a cell value is greater than another cell value.

Here are quick tips to achieve the same:

1. Select all cells where the formula is to be applied, for example A6 to A10.
2. Click conditional formatting under Home or you can search it from ‘Tell me what you want to do?’
3. Select ‘New Rule’
4. Choose 'Use a formula to determine which cell to format'
5. Specify the desired formula, for example to specify ‘if cell A6 > B7’, write $A6>$B7
6. Click OK to select the format. Remember the formula is shown with inverted comas.
7. Go to Manage rule and select ‘Edit rule’
8. Remove 'inverted comas' - use mouse to do it, backspace doesn't work
9. Bingo! The desired conditional formatting is successfully implemented.