Part two of the tip from Tom Lieven, who teaches on the side in Milwaukee.
We will refer back to the same worksheet as before. Check out Tom's tip in the attached spreadsheet- Error Checking
You can use conditional formatting, so that the format of a cell changes when an incident occurs. In this example, Tom used conditional formatting to highlight an error in red so it would not be missed.
Open up the spreadsheet, then click on one of the cells with the error highlighted in red. Then go the menus at the top and select Format and then Conditional Formatting.
To quickly copy conditional formats to other parts of the worksheet, you can use the paintbrush icon (formally called Format Painter). Click on the paintbrush icon on the cell(s) with the format you want to copy, then click on the cells you want it copied to.
To delete a conditional format, click on the cell and go back to conditional formatting via the menu bar and then in the conditional format dialog box like you see above, click delete. It then gives a list of the conditions you had for that conditional formatting test. In this example, we only had one condition, so only the first condition would apply (see below for assigning multiple conditions).
You can use up to three conditions on the same cell. We added a test to highlight high performers (green) and low performers (yellow). To add a second condition, click on the Add button at the bottom of the conditional formatting dialog box.
Conditional formatting can be a great way to check for errors or highlight key results in your worksheets. Give it a try.
Got a favorite Excel tip to share? Send it our way to jon@financeleaders.org .