Forum Discussion

dappolan's avatar
dappolan
Copper Contributor
May 26, 2023
Solved

Help with Conditional Formatting

Hi all,

 

I'm relatively new to the more powerful uses of excel, and I'm having difficulty with some conditional formatting I was trying to do. I'm in catering, and we have a spreadsheet that tracks upcoming events--I was exploring conditional formatting so that the cells in a row are colored automatically based on who the catering planner is for that event. Based on what I'm seeing, the formula for this is pretty simple--=$[Column Letter][Starting Row Number]="[Value]"

 

The only problem is, it's not working--and the only row I notice it working for is the pinned first row, which shouldn't have any of those values. Do pinned/merged rows interfere with the function of conditional formatting? Am I just not seeing something obvious?

 

Thank you in advance for your time/help; if it would be helpful, I can also upload a copy of the sheet with identifying data cleared. 

(this was being primarily done in Sheets, but I couldn't make it work in Excel, either)

 

**edit** I mistakenly wrote & instead of $ when creating this post

  • dappolan 

    This is what the rule looks like:

    The 'Applies to' range starts in row 1, but the formula refers to cell I2. It should refer to the first row of the range, so it should be

     

    =$I1="Peyton"

     

    You can change this by selecting Conditional Formatting > Manage Rules... on the Home tab of the ribbon, then clicking Edit Rule...

    OK your way out when done.

    The rule then works as intended:

    (I removed all manually applied fill coloring to better demonstrate the result)

Resources