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you may already have some experience
using charts to visualize data in Excel
conditional formatting offers another
way to visualize your data using options
like color coding based on the cells
value in this example I have the sales
figures for a group of different
salespeople
and I'd like to find out who's meeting
or exceeding their monthly sales goal of
course we could just look at the numbers
but it might be easier if they were
highlighted somehow and the good news is
that we can actually do just that with a
conditional formatting rule first select
your data then go to conditional
formatting on the Home tab next mouse
over highlight cells rules and in this
case we're going to choose greater ban
now the sales goal for each person on
this list is $4,000 per month if we type
that number here you can see in the
background that any cell with a value
greater than 4,000 is being formatted
automatically if you want you can even
choose a different formatting option
just click ok when you're done
as you can see the formatted cells
really stand out now so we can easily
tell who's met or exceeded their goal
it looks like August wasn't a very good
month for example but September and
October were much much better
next let's take a look at some of the
conditional formatting presets we're
just going to reselect our data then go
back to the conditional formatting
command you have three different types
of presets to choose from data bars
color scales and icon sets to learn more
about each one mouse over these options
in the menu data bars are kind of like
bar graphs the higher the value the
longer the bar in the cell color scales
on the other hand we'll change the
background color based on the cells
value icon sets can be used to add
different symbols ratings and indicators
and you have quite a few styles to
choose from depending on what you need I
think this one's especially easy to read
these icons help
see which items are the highest and also
the lowest when compared to one another
we can also see which ones are about
average now you might have noticed that
the first rule we apply to still visible
that's the one that's changing the fill
color for cells above 4,000 and that's
because Excel lets you have multiple
conditional formatting rules at the same
time so you can highlight different
things to clear the current formatting
rules just select your cells then go to
conditional formatting and mouse over
the option that says clear rules you can
clear the rules who are just the
selected cells or for the entire
spreadsheet in this case though I'd like
to remove the greater than 4,000 rule
while keeping the rest of the icons in
place we can do that by going to manage
rules instead here you'll find a list of
all the rules that are currently applied
to your cells to remove one just select
the rule you want then click the wheat
rule
quick okay
conditional formatting is a great tool
for visualizing your worksheet so
practice using some of these rules on
your own and try combining them to see
what they can tell you about your data
you