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How to shade a cell based on another cell value in Excel?

Supposing you want to shade a cell (says A1) with a certain background color if cell B4 meets the criteria such as has a certain value or the value is greater or less than a specific number. What would you do? This article will show you the method.

Shade a cell based on another cell value with Conditional Formatting

Shade a cell based on another cell value with Conditional Formatting

You can do as follows to shade a cell based on another cell value in Excel.

1. Select the cell (says A1) you want to shade based on another cell value, then click Conditional Formatting > New Rule under the Home tab.

2. In the New Formatting Rule dialog box, you need to:

  • 2.1 Select Use a formula to determine which cells to format option in the Select a Rule Type box;
  • 2.2 If you want to shade cell A1 when value of B4 is greater than 500, then enter formula =$B4>500 into the Format values where this formula is true box;
    Tips: if you want to shade cell A1 when B4 has a certain value such as “test”, the use this formula =$B4=“test”. You can change the variable in the formula based on your needs.
  • 2.3 Click the Format button to specify a background color;
  • 2.4 Click the OK button when it returns to the New Formatting Rule dialog box. See screenshot:

Then you can see the specified cell is shaded based on the value of another cell as below screenshot shown.

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Comments (17)
Rated 4 out of 5 · 1 ratings
Nicholas Guarino
Nicholas Guarino
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I just wanted to leave my experience after reading the comments left here when in need of accomplishing entire columns needing to correlate to their respective rows under another column.
I hope I can help out the community for anyone else in search for answers with the same needs as I had.

This example is if you need each cell to act independently according to a cell in its own respective row. For example: Looking at row 4 I need my cell in column H to change color based on a value in column F (still in row 4). Lets say in this case I need H4 to change when the word Complete is entered in F4. (But I need this rule to apply for all rows. -Lets say I have 104 rows total.)

Conditional Formatting: New Rule > "Use a formula to determine which cells to format" - Format values where this formula is true: (enter the following) =$F1:$F104="Complete" (-Choose Format desired)
(We now need to add the cells this new rule applies to, enter the following) =$H$1:$H$104 > Apply > OK

You should now have independent rows formatting cells in column H dependent on the value "Complete" being entered in cells in column F.
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Rated 4 out of 5
N
N
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I have two column Buy Units (A) and Sell unites (B). When typing sell units B column, If B1>A1 return red font in B1 value. (To say that there is typo= you can not sale more unit than you have got) FOR EACH TRANSACTIONS. Meaning same to be applied for B2>A2, B3>A3., B4>A4... I do not want to keep typing Conditional Formating for each single cell, just want to COPY and Paste. This seems relatively easy ask but taking me a toll! Can you please help?
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Nur Siddique
Nur Siddique     N
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Yes I want learn/ know this
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Shawn
Shawn
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How do I solve this ?
Say I have 5 Columns - CORRECT_ANS, PERSON1, PERSON2, PERSON3, PERSON4
and say 4 rows with values as below.

CORRECT_ANS, PERSON1, PERSON2, PERSON3, PERSON4
A B C A A
B A B D B
C C C A B
C A D C C

Values in Columns PERSON1 to PERSON4 should match against corrresponding row in CORRECT_ANS. If value is same, then Cell color to be GREEN, else RED.
So in 1st case, PERSON3 and PERSON4 cell should be GREEN, rest RED. Similarly 2nd row, PERSON2 and PERSON4 gets GREEN, rest RED, and so on.
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woogityboogidy
woogityboogidy
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what if I want a cell to be shaded based on the presence or absence of text in a different cell?
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Avinash
Avinash     woogityboogidy
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If you want the condition to format several cells on the same row, select them all and use the formula =$J1="your_text_here"
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Patrick
Patrick
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HI what if I want to condition a cell based on the presence or not of text in a different cell?
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ES Alexander
ES Alexander
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To apply this to multiple rows, use the same formula (Excel automatically continues the formula with relative values).
e.g. for the following sheet,
_|_A_B
1| 0 0
2| 0 1
3| 1 0
4| 1 1
to make A1 depend on B1, and A2 depend on B2, and so forth, use =$B1=0. To make all the cells in A depend on one cell in B, use =$B$1=0, and to make the cells in A depend on the cells in the next row of B, use =$B2=0 (with the A cells selected from A1).
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kendozico@gmail.com
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Ho do I apply this rule by row
For example, I want Cell I2 to be formatted by G2. I3 by G3 and so on
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Aidan
Aidan    
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Hey for doing it by row, let's say I want to make A red when B > 0.

For that I would go to A, and enter the formula =B:B > 0

That's how you would do this
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Vicky
Vicky     Aidan
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Hi,
I want to dpo the following. Help me out.
A1 to be green if B1>0
A2 to be green if B1>0
.
.
.
.
A250 to be green if B250>0

I am unable to copy the formula to all the rows.
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Thancos Kakinada
Thancos Kakinada
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How can we apply the rule on multiple cells with a single formula? Applying the rule on every single cell will be a hectic job.
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Deb
Deb
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How might i format column N to be shaded according to value in column L? (Eg higher red, lower blue, equals green, no value - no shading)
Can i write a formula for column N in conditional formatting?

K L M N
DD 0.2 0.8

AM 0.8 1.0

TB 1.0 1.0

AM 1.0 1.0

TB 0.6 0.8

AM 0.4 0.4

AM 0.8 0.8


Any help appreciated
D
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crystal
crystal     Deb
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Hi Deb,
Sorry can't help you with that. Thank you for your comment.
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Aidan
Aidan     crystal
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Hey Deb and Crystal,

For doing it by row, let's say I want to make A red when B > 0.

For that I would go to A, and enter the formula =B:B > 0

That's how you would do this
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Manish
Manish
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i want to know formula for color change of cell on basis of two different cell values
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crystal
crystal     Manish
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Hi Manish,
Please try this formula =AND($A2="KTE", $B2>100)
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