Highlight a cell until worked

Use conditional formatting on column E.

1. Select the range to check, for example E2:E1000.
2. Go to Home > Conditional Formatting > New Rule > Use a formula to determine which cells to format.
3. Enter this formula:

=AND($D2<>"",$E2="")

     4.Choose a fill color and select OK.

The $D2 reference checks whether column D has a value on that row, while $E2 checks whether column E is still blank. As soon as a value is entered in E, the highlight disappears.

If the data starts on a different row, replace 2 with the first row of the selected range.

You can do this with Conditional Formatting.

• Select the cells in column E
• Find the Conditional Formatting > Use a formula to determine which cells to format.
• Use this formula: =AND($D2<>"",$E2="")
• Choose a fill color and click OK.

Here, sduesler, is a spreadsheet that does what you're asking on the basis of one assumption: that assumption is that what you're entering into column D is text in nature. I use the conditional formatting function, with the rule being, in effect, paint a light red background in E if E is blank and D contains text.

if it's numeric data that you're entering in column D, then you'd change the ISTEXT to ISNUMBER.

If what you might enter into D could be either number or text, then we'd have to come up with a more extensive rule, but for now I'm going to assume that text or number is the case.