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Tyler Rose's avatar
Tyler Rose
Copper Contributor
Aug 01, 2018
Solved

Conditional formatting en masse

Hello! I am trying to accomplish the following process:

 

If A1 and B1 cell contents don't match, format both A1 and B1

If A2 and B2 cell contents don't match, format both A2 and B2

If A3 and B3 cell contents don't match, format both A3 and B3

...and so on for the entire column

 

Is this possible to do without adding a new rule for each row? I have thousands of rows to apply this to, and they all need to function independently from each other. Thank you so much for your time!

  • IMHO, easier with formula

    =$A1<>OFFSET($A1,0,1)

    or simply

    =($A1<>$B1)

    applied to your entire range

    With format painter you generate as many rules as rows in your range.

6 Replies

  • Tyler Rose's avatar
    Tyler Rose
    Copper Contributor

    I found a solution! (In case anyone else has this problem in the future and stumbles upon this post)

     

    First, highlight A1:B1. Apply conditional formatting with the rule type "Format only unique or duplicate values". Select unique and format as desired.

     

    Then, to apply en masse, but have them function independently, highlight A1:B1 again and double click the Format Painter. After that, hold the down arrow until all desired rows have had the rule applied to them.

     

    If anyone knows of an easier way, please let me know!

    • Mikael_Rust's avatar
      Mikael_Rust
      Copper Contributor

      Tyler your method worked fine but you can apply it to the entire column simply by clicking on the column letter at the top after double-clicking format painter. Brilliant.

    • SergeiBaklan's avatar
      SergeiBaklan
      Diamond Contributor

      IMHO, easier with formula

      =$A1<>OFFSET($A1,0,1)

      or simply

      =($A1<>$B1)

      applied to your entire range

      With format painter you generate as many rules as rows in your range.

      • Tyler Rose's avatar
        Tyler Rose
        Copper Contributor

        Ignore my last reply, I deleted it. I needed to use the absolute reference to solve my issue. Thank you so much Sergei! This is great.

    • Tyler Rose's avatar
      Tyler Rose
      Copper Contributor

      Thank you for taking the time to respond, Sergei. However, unless I misunderstand, this does not solve my problem. I need to apply this rule to every row in the sheet and have both cells affected by the conditional format. Thank you again! :)

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