Working with Multiple Conditions

When working with conditional formats, you'll often discover times when you need to apply multiple conditions to a single cell. The previous tip discussed how to define a single condition to apply to a cell, but Excel allows you to define many conditions that can all apply to the same cell or range of cells.

Begin by selecting the cells for which you want to define conditional formatting rules. Then, with the Home tab of the ribbon displayed, click Conditional Formatting in the Styles group. From the resulting list of options, select Manage Rules. Excel displays the Conditional Formatting Rules Manager. (Click here to see a related figure.)

The Conditional Formatting Rules Manager is nothing but a list of the rules which have been defined for the selected cells. Each rule is shown on a separate line, and you can work with the rules by clicking one of the available buttons:

• New Rule. Allows you to define a new rule, which is added to the end of the rules list. Defining a new rule uses the same procedures described in the previous tip.
• Edit Rule. Make changes to the selected rule.
• Delete Rule. Remove the selected rule so it no longer applies to the selected cells.
• Up Arrow. Move the selected rule up in the list of rules.
• Down Arrow. Move the selected rule down in the list of rules.

Rules are always evaluated in the order in which they appear in the Conditional Formatting Rules Manager. You can modify the evaluation order by using the up and down arrow tools.