Forum Discussion
Macros or Find
I am seeking to find a way to search a worksheet and find cells in a column which contain a single word or two amongst the many that may be in the cell and have that trigger a color reformat of an adjacent cell. It could be that I just don't know the proper operating terms. I have tried the texts "contains", "includes", and with just the words but I still cannot get it to do what I want. I believe this is possible either with a macro or in the Find function. Any suggestions or help would be appreciated. Thanks, John
19 Replies
You may use conditional formatting rule with formula like
Of course better not to hardcode word withi the formula, above is only to illustrate an idea.
You can use Conditional Formatting for this purposes.
Let's say you want to look at column D. If a cell contains the word Excel (with possibly other words), the adjacent cell in column E should be highlighted in green.
Select column E (the column you want to format).
On the Home tab of the ribbon, select Conditional Formatting > New Rule...
Select 'Use a formula to determine which cells to format'.
Enter the formula
=ISNUMBER(FIND("Excel",D1))
(We use D1 because it is the first cell in the selection)
Click Format...
Activate the Fill tab.
Select green.
Click OK, then click OK again.
If you want to highlight cells in column E if the cell in column D contains both Word and Excel, do the same, but with the formula
=AND(ISNUMBER(FIND("Word",D1)),ISNUMBER(FIND("Excel",D1)))
HansVogelaar Is there a way to have this formula apply to more than one column without duplicating the formula and editing. I tried ending with ,D1:C1 but that did. not work all of the time. Thanks, John
Please explain in more detail what you want to accomplish.
HansVogelaar Thank you so much for responding however I am have difficulty in following your directions which may be because I am using a Mac. When I get to the Conditional Formatting screen it does not show me a place to enter your formula. I can see where it says formula under the minimum and maximum value. That did not work for me. This is a new subscription for me and I am transitioning from an old version. It is almost like starting over.
Thanks. John
jhicks5charternet The screens on a Mac are a bit different.
1) New Rule... on the Home ribbon.
Then choose Classic in the Style field.
Then select "Use a formula .........." from the field below the Style.
Now you can enter your formula.
