How to highlight all error cells in Excel?
If you create formulas in your worksheet, it will be inevitable to appear some error values. Can you highlight all these cells which contain the error values in your worksheet at once? The Conditional Formatting utility in Excel can help you solve this problem.
Highlight all error cells with Conditional Formatting in Excel
Select and highlight all error cells with Kutools for Excel 
| Feature | Conditional Formatting | Kutools for Excel |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Automatically highlighting error cells and keeping the highlighting updated | Quickly selecting and highlighting all current error cells in a range |
| Formula required | Yes; uses a formula such as =ISERROR(A1) | No |
| Setup complexity | Moderate | Very simple |
| Automatic update | Yes; new error values in the formatted range are highlighted automatically | No; rerun the feature when you need to select newly created error cells |
| Main advantage | Dynamic highlighting that automatically responds to new error values | Quickly selects all error cells with one command and requires no formula |
| Main limitation | Requires creating and maintaining a Conditional Formatting rule | Highlighting is selection-based and must be applied again for newly created errors |
| Recommended use | Worksheets where formula errors may change frequently | Fast one-time checking and highlighting of existing errors |
Highlight all error cells with Conditional Formatting in Excel
The following steps will show you how to apply Conditional Formatting to highlight all cells that contain errors.
1.Select a range or the whole worksheet that you want to apply the Conditional Formatting.
2.Then click Home > Conditional Formatting > New Rule, see screenshot:
3. In the New Formatting Rule dialog box, select Use a formula to determine which cells to format option, and then type this formula =ISERROR(A1) (A1 indicates the first cell in your selected range, you can change it as you need) into the Format values where this formula is true text box. See screenshot:
4. Then click Format button, and in the Format Cells dialog box, select one color that you want to use under Fill tab, see screenshot:
5. After choosing the color, then click OK > OK to close the dialogs, and all the error value cells have been highlighted as following screenshot shown:
Note: Conditional Formatting tool is a dynamic function, if you create other error values in your selected range, they will be highlighted as well.
Select and highlight all error cells with Kutools for Excel
If you want to select and highlight error cells, you can use Kutools for Excel’s Select Cells with Error Value utility, then highlight them with your favorite color.
After free installing Kutools for Excel, please do as below:
1. Select the cells you want to find error cells, click Kutools > Select > Select Cells with Error Value. See screenshot:
2. Then all the error cells are selected, and click Home > Fill Color to select a color to color the error cells. See screenshot:
Conclusion
Highlighting cells that contain formula errors makes it easier to spot calculation problems and review large worksheets more efficiently.
Conditional Formatting is a good choice when you want the highlighting to update automatically as formula results change. If you only need to quickly find and highlight the errors that currently exist, Kutools for Excel provides a simpler approach by selecting all error cells in the chosen range without requiring a formula or formatting rule.
Tip: Highlighting errors only identifies where problems occur. Review the underlying formulas before replacing values or deleting cells, since errors such as #N/A, #REF!, and #DIV/0! may have different causes.
Choose Conditional Formatting for ongoing error monitoring, or use Kutools when you need a faster, formula-free way to check and highlight existing errors.
Related articles:
How to highlight cells with external links in Excel?
How to highlight / conditional formatting cells with formulas in Excel?
How to highlight odd or even numbers in Excel?
How to select cells with error values in Excel?
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