Quickly select cells based on color or formatting in Excel

Sometimes you may need to select all cells based on formatting of other cells in Excel. Once the cells with same formatting are selected, you can modify them as a group. For example, you can apply different formatting to the selected cells.

Excel’s built-in command only selects the cells which completely match the formatting of a cell, but with the Kutools for Excel’s Select Cells with Format utility, you can:

Select all cells with same / similar formatting of a cell

Select all cells by color of a cell

 Click Kutools >> Select >> Select Cells with Format. See screenshots:

Select all cells with same / similar formatting of a cell

Supposing you have a range of data in a worksheet as shown in the below screenshot and you want to select all cells with the same formatting of a cell, you can get it done as follows.

1. Apply this utility by clicking Kutools > Select > Select Cells with Format, and in the Select Cells with Format dialog box do the following settings:

1): Select a range that you want to select only the cells with the same format as the specified cell by clicking  button. 2): Click Choose Format From Cell button to select a cell that you want to use its formatting. It will take the first cell of the selected range as the base if you do not choose a specific cell. You can see which cell decided to be the base cell here. 3): All attributes of the base cell are displayed in the below list box. If you want to select all cells with the exactly same formatting of the base cell, please checked all attribute options. 4): If the range contains empty cells and you don’t want to select them, please check this Ignore the blank cells option.

2. Then click OK button, and a prompt box will pop out to remind you how many cells will be selected.

3. If you want to select the cells, please click Yes button, you will see all cells with the same formatting of your specific cell have been selected as shown in the below screenshots. If you want to search again, please click No.

Select all cells by color of a cell

Supposing you have a range and want to select all cells by using color of a cell, you can quickly get it done as follows.

1. Apply this utility by clicking Kutools > Select > Select Cells with Format, and in the Select Cells with Format dialog box do the following options:

1): Select a range that you want to select the same colored cells with the specified cell by clicking  button. 2): Click Choose Format From Cell button to select a cell which has the background color you want to use. It will take the first cell of the selected range as the base if you do not choose a specific cell. You can see which cell decided to be the base cell here. 3): All attributes of the base cell are displayed in the below list box. Uncheck all except the Fill checkbox in this demo. 4): If the range contains empty cells and you don’t want to select them, please check this Ignore the blank cells option.

2. Then click OK button, and a prompt box will pop out to remind you how many cells will be selected.

3. If you want to select the cells, please click Yes button, you will see all cells with the same color of your specific cell have been selected as shown in the below screenshots. If you want to search again, please click No.

Note:

Smart Selection button : Click this button, it will automatically and smartly only select parts of attributes of the base cell.