Skip to content
Free Excel Tutorials
  • Home
  • Excel For Beginners
  • Excel Intermediate
  • Advanced Excel For Experts

Data Analysis

  • Example of COUNTIFS with variable table column in Excel
  • Conditional Formatting Rules in Excel
  • How to Create Thermometer Chart in Excel
  • How to create a Histogram in Excel
  • Use Data Form to input, edit and delete records in Excel

References

  • INDEX function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • Multi-criteria lookup and transpose in Excel
  • How to use Excel ROW Function
  • How to retrieve first match between two ranges in Excel
  • Basic INDEX MATCH approximate in Excel

Data Validations

  • Excel Data validation must begin with
  • Excel Data validation unique values only
  • Excel Data validation don’t exceed total
  • Excel Data validation require unique number
  • Prevent invalid data entering in specific cells

Highlight cells that equal in Excel

by

This tutorial shows how to Highlight cells that equal in Excel using the example below;

Formula

=A1="X"

Explanation

Note: Excel contains many built-in “presets” for highlighting values with conditional formatting, including a preset to highlight cells that contain a specific value. However, if you want more flexibility, you can use your own formula, as explained in this article.

If you want to highlight cells that equal text, you can use a simple formula that returns TRUE when a cell contains the text (substring) that you specify.

For example, if you want to highlight any cells in the range C5-C11 that contain the text “dog”, you can use:

=C5="Dog"

Note: with conditional formatting, it’s important that the formula be entered relative to the “active cell” in the selection, which is assumed to be C5 in this case.

In the example we have pulled the value we are looking for out on to the worksheet in cell F6, so it can be easily changed. The conditional formatting rule itself is using this formula:

=C5=$F$6

How this formula works

This formula is just a simple comparison using the equal to operator (=).

When you use a formula to apply conditional formatting, the formula is evaluated relative to the active cell in the selection at the time the rule is created. In this case, the rule is evaluated for each of the 7 cells in C5:C11, and during evaluation C5 will change to the address of the cell being evaluated in the range where conditional formatting is applied.

The address of the cell that contains the search string (F6) is an absolute reference ($F$6) so that it is “locked” and won’t change as the formula is evaluated.

Case sensitive option

By default a comparison is not case-sensitive. If you need to check case as well, you can use the EXACT function instead of the equals.

=EXACT(C5,$F$6)

Post navigation

Previous Post:

DECIMAL function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Learn Basic Excel

Ribbon
Workbook
Worksheets
Format Cells
Find & Select
Sort & Filter
Templates
Print
Share
Protect
Keyboard Shortcuts

Categories

  • Charts
  • Data Analysis
  • Data Validation
  • Excel Functions
    • Cube Functions
    • Database Functions
    • Date and Time Functions
    • Engineering Functions
    • Financial Functions
    • Information Functions
    • Logical Functions
    • Lookup and Reference Functions
    • Math and Trig Functions
    • Statistical Functions
    • Text Functions
    • Web Functions
  • Excel VBA
  • Excel Video Tutorials
  • Formatting
  • Grouping
  • Others

Logical Functions

  • How to use Excel FALSE Function
  • XOR function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • How to use Excel XOR Function
  • How to use Excel NOT Function
  • Not Equal To ‘<>‘ operator in Excel

Date Time

  • Get work hours between dates and times in Excel
  • MINUTE function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • Add days exclude certain days of week in Excel
  • Next biweekly payday from date in Excel
  • How to calculate workdays per month in Excel

Grouping

  • Group times into unequal buckets in Excel
  • If cell contains one of many things in Excel
  • How to randomly assign people to groups in Excel
  • Group times into 3 hour buckets in Excel
  • Group arbitrary text values in Excel

General

  • Find, Select, Replace and Go To Special in Excel
  • How to create dynamic worksheet reference in Excel
  • Excel Operators
  • Create dynamic workbook reference to another workbook in Excel
  • How to generate random date between two dates in Excel
© 2023 xlsoffice . All Right Reserved. | Teal Smiles | Abbreviations And Their Meaning