One of the most dramatic additions to MS Excel 2007’s Conditional Formatting menu is icon sets. These icon are pictures that you can assign to data values for quick data analysis. The icons range from stop lights to flags to check marks and x’s.
Suppose you want to set up an icon set that only values greater than or equal to 100 display an icon.
Follow the steps below to learn how:
- Select the cells.
- Click on Home | Styles | Conditional Formatting | Icon Sets.
- Select any icon set.
- With the range selected, click Home | Styles | Conditional Formatting | Manage Rules.
- MS Excel will display its Conditional Formatting Rules Manager dialog box.
- Click Edit Rule to display the Edit Formatting Rule dialog box.
- Change the first icon setting to When Value Is >= 100 and specify Number as the Type.
- Leave the other icon settings as they are.
- Click OK.
- Click New Rule and choose this rule type: Format Only Cells That Contain.
- In the bottom section of the dialog box, specify Cell Value Less Than 100.
- Click OK.
- Place a check mark next to Stop If True for the first rule.
- Click OK.
The first rule checks to see whether the value is less than 100. If so, rule checking stops, and no conditional formatting is applied. If the value is greater than or equal to 100, the second rule applies. This rule indicates that values greater than or equal to 100 are displayed with an icon.
Pretty cool huh?