Afternoon all,

I was just wondering how I can conditionally format some cells using a formula.

Cell E81 contains a word. I want to set my formatting so that IF cell E81 = "Smith", then format cells E81:E85 with a red background, IF E81 <> "Smith", then format cells E81:E85 blue background.

Thanks,

Pete

• Moved by Fei XueMicrosoft contingent staff 5 hours 20 minutes ago

Select cells E81:E85.

Set the background to blue. This will be the default.

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

=E$81="Smith"

The $ is essential - it tells Excel to look at row 81 for all cells.

Click Format...

Activate the Fill tab.

Select Red.

Click OK, then OK again.