Excel is a very useful tool for visual data analysis. But if you have a large volume of information, this can become a little daunting. Fortunately, Excel has several tools that help you make this easy. It’s all thanks to the Conditional Formatting menu. Let’s learn how to use Highlight Cells Rules in Microsoft Excel.
How to Use Highlight Cells Rules in Excel
Imagine that you have several rows and columns full of numbers, ranging between 0 and 100. You need to quickly identify only those values that are greater than a certain number, like 70. Of course, you could manually analyze your data and highlight values that meet this condition. But thanks to Highlight Cells Rules, Excel will do the work for you.
To use this powerful Excel feature, begin by clicking and dragging your cursor to select your range of values. Here, the range is A1:C5.
With your data range selected, go to the Home tab on Excel’s ribbon. Here, there are a variety of formatting features. The option you want sits just right of center, and it’s labeled Conditional Formatting. Click on the dropdown, and you’ll see a new list of options.
At the top of the list, you’ll see Highlight Cells Rules. Hover over this field, and you’ll see a second menu appear with an array of options. These include Greater Than, Less Than, Between, Equal To, and more. By choosing a field, you can tell Excel to highlight certain cells that match a given condition.
In this example click Greater Than. In the open field on the right, enter your condition, which here is 70. In the Format With area, you can customize the color fill.
When you’re finished, click OK. Excel will highlight your cells based on the conditions you’ve specified, identifying only those cells with values above 70.
As you can see, Highlight Cells Rules in Excel is a quick and easy way to visually analyze your data.
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