Coloring cells in excel with formula

You can use a formula in conjunction with an Event Macro. Pick a cell, say B2 and enter the formula:

=IF(A1>10,"black","green")

Then format B2 Custom ;;;
This will hide the displayed text.
Then place the following event macro in the worksheet code area:

Private Sub Worksheet_Calculate()
Application.EnableEvents = False
    With Range("B2")
        If .Value = "green" Then
            .Interior.Color = RGB(0, 255, 0)
        Else
            .Interior.Color = RGB(0, 0, 0)
        End If
    End With
Application.EnableEvents = True
End Sub

The macro will run every time the worksheet is re-calculated. It will exame the text in B2 (even though the text is not visible) and adjust the backgound color accordingly.

Because it is worksheet code, it is very easy to install and automatic to use:

1. right-click the tab name near the bottom of the Excel window
2. select View Code — this brings up a VBE window
3. paste the stuff in and close the VBE window

If you have any concerns, first try it on a trial worksheet.

If you save the workbook, the macro will be saved with it.
If you are using a version of Excel later then 2003, you must save
the file as .xlsm rather than .xlsx

To remove the macro:

1. bring up the VBE windows as above
2. clear the code out
3. close the VBE window

To learn more about macros in general, see:

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm

and

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee814735(v=office.14).aspx

To learn more about Event Macros (worksheet code), see:

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/event.htm

Macros must be enabled for this to work!

There are two parts to this.

1. You already have a sheet with formula.
2. Going forward anything you type in as a formula in the same sheet.

I suggest a VBA solution as follows.

Press ALT + F11 to access the VBA editor. Insert a Module from the Insert Menu. Go to its Code Window and paste the following code into it.

Sub ColorFormula()

Dim inrange As Variant
Dim incell As Range
On Error Resume Next
Set inrange = Application.InputBox(Prompt:="Please Select a Range", Type:=8)
If inrange.Rows.Count = 0 Then
    MsgBox ("No Range Selected!")
    End
End If

For Each incell In inrange
    If incell.HasFormula = True Then
        incell.Font.Color = -4165632
    End If
Next

End Sub

Now from the Left Pane, click ThisWorkbook and select WorkBook SheetChange Event in the code window. A Placeholder for subroutine with End Sub shall be available for you to inert your code into it.

Paste the following code into it

If Target.HasFormula = True Then
    Target.Font.Color = -4165632
End If

In this example, Blue color is selected, you can change it to any other available color.

Exit the VBA Editor. Now every time you change a cell in any of the sheets of that workbook, the SheetChange event will fire and if it’s formula, it will change to Blue font.

Press ALT + F8 and run the ColorForlmula Macro and specify the cell range. The code will run thru each cell in the range and if already existing formula is found, it shall change the font to Blue.

Cells in a worksheet can contain values or they can contain formulas. At some time, you may wish to somehow highlight all the cells in your worksheet that contain formulas by coloring those cells. There are several ways you can approach and solve this problem. If you don’t have a need to do the highlighting that often, a manual approach may be best. Follow these steps:

1. Press either F5 or Ctrl+G. Excel displays the Go To dialog box.
2. Click Special. Excel displays the Go To Special dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Go To Special dialog box.

3. Select the Formulas radio button.
4. Click OK.

At this point, every cell in the worksheet that contains formulas is selected, and you can add color to those cells or format them as desired. This approach can be automated, if desired, by using a macro like the following:

Sub ColorFormulas()
    ActiveSheet.Cells.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeFormulas, 23).Select
    With Selection.Interior
        .ColorIndex = 6
        .Pattern = xlSolid
    End With
End Sub

You can run this macro as often as necessary in order to highlight the various cells that contain formulas. The only problem is that if a formula is deleted from a cell that was previously highlighted, the highlighting remains; it is not removed automatically. In this case, a different macro approach is mandated. This macro acts on a range of cells you select before running the macro.

Sub ColorFunction()
    For Each cell In Selection
        If cell.HasFormula Then
            With cell.Interior
                .ColorIndex = 6
                .Pattern = xlSolid
            End With
        Else
            cell.Interior.ColorIndex = xlNone
        End If
    Next cell
End Sub

The macro checks each cell in the range. If the cell contains a formula, then it is highlighted. If the cell does not contain a formula, then the highlight is turned off.

Another potential solution is to use a user-defined function along with the conditional formatting capabilities of Excel. Create the following function in the VBA Editor:

Function CellHasFormula(c As Range) As Boolean
    CellHasFormula = c.HasFormula
End Function

With this function in place, you can use the conditional formatting capabilities of Excel (detailed elsewhere in ExcelTips) to check what the formula returns. In other words, you would set a conditional format that checked the result of this formula:

=CellHasFormula(A1)

If the result is true (the cell contains a formula), then your conditional format is applied.

It is interesting to note that you don’t have to create a VBA macro to use the conditional formatting route, if you don’t want to. (Some people have a natural aversion to using macros.) Instead, you can follow these steps:

1. Press Ctrl+F3. Excel displays the Define Name dialog box.
2. In the Names field (at the top of the dialog box), enter a name such as FormulaInCell.
3. In the Refers To field (at the bottom of the dialog box), enter the following:

=GET.CELL(48,INDIRECT("rc",FALSE))

4. Click OK.

Now you can follow the techniques previously outlined for setting up the conditional formatting. The only difference is that the conditional format should check for the following formula, instead:

=FormulaInCell

Author Bio

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen…

How to change the color of your cells in function of the value in your cells?

The secret to change the color? A logical test

To change the color with a formula, you MUST create a logical test.

A logical test returns TRUE or FALSE, or also 0 and 1. And it’s exactly what we need to create our own rule.

• The test returns TRUE, then we apply of custom format
• The test returns FALSE, the conditional formatting is not applied

For many people there is a confusion between a logical test and the IF function. The first argument of the IF function is the logical test and it’s just what we need.

Step 1: Test your rule before

I have seen a lot of mistake in my professional career when people wants to create their own rules. My advise is to test your rule in a cell.

For instance, you want to highlight all the cells with a value lower than 15.

So in column C, let’s write the test and see the result

=B2<15

Step 2: Copy your test as conditional formatting rules

1. Select the cell where to apply the rule (here B2)
2. Copy your formula with a basic copy-paste.
3. Open the menu Home > Conditional Formatting > New Rule

1. Select the rule type Use a formula to determine which cells to format
2. In the text box, paste your test 😀

Step 3: Change the color

Once you have click on the button Format, you can change, the font, the background of the cell, the borders, ….

For instance here, we change only the color of the background when the test is TRUE.

Validate your rule to close the New Rule dialog box

Step 4: Apply the rule to many cells

At this step, the rule applies only for the cell B2. But now, we need to apply the same formula for the range B2:B9

1. Open the menu Conditional Formatting > Manage Rules

1. When the dialog box opens, you can see that the rule only applies on B2.

1. Update this field to write the range of cells to apply the rule

1. Now, all the cells where the rule is TRUE are red 😀👍😍

Other examples

Create your own rules to change the color is a very common task in Excel. Here is a list of other articles where we use the same technique.

• Compare 2 columns
• Highlight birthday
• Highlight week-end
• ….

Why it doesn’t work in my workbook 😱😱

One thing is very, very, VERY important is to selected the cell when you create your rule ❗❗❗

If you haven’t selected the correct cells when you have written or pasted your test, the rule applies in the wrong cell.

For instance, here, we have selected the cell B4 when we have pasted the test.

This is the only reason why you can have an issue between the result expected and the result you want 😉👍

Tutorial video

In this video, you will see 3 examples with 3 differente techniques

Let’s say that one of our tasks is to entering of the information about: did the ordering to a customer in the current month. Then on the basis of the information you need to select the cell in color according to the condition: which from customers have not made any orders for the past 3 months. For these customers you will need to re-send the offer.

Of course it’s the task for Excel. The program should automatically find such counterparties and, accordingly, to color ones. For these conditions we will use to the conditional formatting.



The filling cells with dates automatically

At first, you need to prepare to the structure for filling the register. First of all, let’s consider to the ready example of the automated register, which is depicted in the picture below. Today date 07.07.2018:

The user to need only to specify, if the customer have made an order in the current month, in the corresponding cell you should enter the text value of «order». The main condition for the allocation: if for 3 months the contractor did not make any order, his number is automatically highlighted in red.

Presented this decision should automate some work processes and to simplify to the visual data analysis.

The automatic filling of the cells with the relevant dates

At first, for the register with numbers of customers we will create to the column headers with green and up to date for months that will automatically display to the periods of time. To do this, in the cell B1 you need to enter the following formula:

How does the formula work for automatically generating of the outgoing months?

In the picture, the formula returns the period of time passing since the date of writing this article: 17.09.2017. In the first argument in the function DATE is the nested formula that always returns the current year to today’s date thanks to the functions: YEAR and TODAY. In the second argument is the month number (-1). The negative number means that we are interested in what it was a month last time. The example of the conditions for the second argument with the value:

• 1 means the first month (January) in the year that is specified in the first argument;
• 0 – it is 1 month ago;
• -1 – there is 2 months ago from the beginning of the current year (i.e. 01.10.2016).

The last argument-is the day number of the month, which is specified in the second argument. As a result, the DATE function collects all parameters into a single value and the formula returns to the corresponding date.

Next, go to the cell C1 and type the following formula:

As you can see now the DATE function uses the value from the cell B1 and increases to the month number by 1 in relation to the previous cell. As the result is the 1 – the number of the following month.

Now you need to copy this formula from the cell C1 in the rest of the column headings in the range D1:AY1.

To highlight to the cell range B1:AY1 and select to the tool: «HOME»-«Cells»-«Format Cells» or just to press CTRL+1. In the dialog box that appears, in the tab «Number» in the section «Category» you need to select the option «Custom». In the «Type:» to enter the value: MMM. YY (required the letters in upper register). Because of this, we will get to the cropped display of the date values in the headers of the register, what simplifies to the visual analysis and make it more comfortable due to better readability.

Please note! At the onset of the month of January (D1), the formula automatically changes in the date to the year in the next one.



How to select the column by color in Excel under the terms

Now you need to highlight to the cell by color which respect of the current month. Because of this, we can easily find the column in which you need to enter the actual data for this month. To do this:

1. To select the range of the cells B2:AY15 and select the tool: «HOME» -«Styles» -«Conditional Formatting»-«New Rule». And in the appeared window «New Formatting Rule» you need to select the option: «Use a formula to determine which cells to format»



2. In the input field to enter the formula:



3. Click «Format» and indicate on the tab «Fill» in what color (for example green) will be the selected cells of the current month. Then on all Windows for confirmation to click «OK».

The column under the appropriate heading of the register is automatically highlighted in green accordingly to our terms and conditions:

How does the formula highlight of the column color on a condition work?

Due to the fact that before the creation of the conditional formatting rule we have covered all the table data for inputting data of register, the formatting will be active for each cell in the range B2:AY15. The mixed reference in the formula B$1 (absolute address only for rows, but for columns it is relative) determines that the formula will always to refer to the first row of each column.

Automatic highlighting of the column in the condition of the current month

The main condition for the fill by color of the cells: if the range B1:AY1 is the same date that the first day of the current month, then the cells in a column change its colors by specified in conditional formatting.

Please note! In this formula, for the last argument of the function DATE is shown 1, in the same way as for formulas in determining the dates for the column headings of the register.

In our case, is the green filling of the cells. If we open our register in next month, that it has the corresponding column is highlighted in green regardless of the current day.

The table is formatted, now we are filling it with the text value of the «order» in a mixed order of clients for current and past months.

How to highlight the cells in red color according to the condition

Now we need to highlight in red to the cells with the numbers of clients who for 3 months have not made any order. To do this:

1. Select the range of the cells A2:A15 (that is, the list of the customer numbers) and select to the tool: «HOME»-«Styles»-«Conditional formatting»-«Create rule». And in the window that appeared «Create a formatting rule» to select the option: «Use the formula for determining which cells to format».
2. This time in the input box to enter the formula:



3. To click «Format» and specify the red color on the tab «Fill». Then on all Windows click «OK».
4. Fill the cells with the text value of «order» as in the picture and look at the result:

The numbers of customers are highlighted in red, if in the row has no have the value «order» in the last three cells for the current month (inclusively).

The analysis of the formula for the highlighting of cells according to the condition

Firstly, we will do by the middle part of our formula. The SHIFT function returns a range reference shifted relative to the basic range of the certain number of rows and columns. The returned reference can be a single cell or a range of cells. Optionally, you can define to the number of returned rows and columns. In our example, the function returns the reference to the cell range for the last 3 months.

The important part for our terms of highlighting in color – is belong to the first argument of the SHIFT function. It determines from which month to start the offset. In this example, there is the cell D2, that is, the beginning of the year – January. Of course for the rest of the cells in the column the row number for the base of the cell will correspond to the line number in what it is located. The following 2 arguments of the SHIFT function to determine how many rows and columns should be done offset. Since the calculations for each customer will carry in the same line, the offset value for the rows we specified is -0.

At the same time for the calculating the value of the third argument (the offset by the columns) we use to the nested formula MONTH(TODAY()), which in accordance with the terms returns to the number of the current month in the current year. From the calculated formula of the month as a number subtract the number 4, that is, in cases November we get the offset by 8 columns. And, for example, for June – there are on 2 columns only.

The last two arguments for the SHIFT function, determine the height (in the number of rows) and width (in the number of columns) of the returned range. In our example, there is the area of the cell with height on 1 row and with width on 4 columns. This range covers to the columns of 3 previous months and the current month.

The first function in the COUNTIF formula checks the condition: how many times in the returned range using the SHIFT function, we can found to the text value «order». If the function returns the value of 0, it means from the client with this number for 3 months there was not any order. And in accordance with our terms and conditions, the cell with number of this client is shown in red fill color.

If we want to register to data for customers, Excel is ideally suited for this purpose. You can easily record in the appropriate categories to the number of ordered goods, as well as the date of implementation of transaction. The problem gradually starts with arising of the data growth.

Download example automatic highlight cells by color.

If so many of them that we need to spend a few minutes looking for a specific position of the register and analysis of the information entered. In this case, it is necessary to add in the table to the register of mechanisms to automate some workflows of the user. And so we did.