If you use conditional formatting in Excel, it is very possible that you know that several rules can be applied at the same time, because of this it is essential to know how to manage the rules . This way we can keep everything in order, organized and apply them as needed..
We cannot deny that Microsoft Excel is a fundamental program for many of us. In our case, we have even left you a huge amount of guides on this useful application such as: naming a table, which helps organization; superimpose graphics, which significantly improves a presentation or make a pie chart, which is sometimes much better presented.
This time we are going to see how to manage conditional formatting rules, in this way we can better organize our rules, apply them when necessary and maintain harmony in our files..
Rules manager in Excel
Before opening the rules manager, we need to select a particular sheet to work with. Now we are going to go to the "Home" tab and click on "Conditional Formatting" and we are going to choose "Manage rules".
A new window "Conditional Formatting Rules Manager" will appear, we will use the drop-down box at the top to choose the spreadsheet or to use the current selection of cells and view the rules..
This gives us the possibility to jump between the rules that we configure for different worksheets in our workbook.
Manage conditional formatting rules
At the top of the Rules Manager, we will find different actions that we can carry out. After performing an action, we will click on "Apply" and "OK" at the bottom.
Create a new rule
We will click on "New rule" to be able to configure another one in the current sheet or for the selected cells. If we haven't selected any cells yet, we'll just have to add them in the “Applies to” column for that rule.
Edit a rule
If we click on "Edit rule" we can change its type and description. This box looks too much like the "New Rule" window. Here we will be able to make changes to the rule or the format.
Delete a rule
In case we want to delete a rule completely, we will click on "Delete rule". We will only have to bear in mind that we will not be asked for confirmation, it will be deleted immediately. So we will have to be careful when using this option.
Duplicate a rule
A fairly simple way to set up a similar conditional formatting rule is to duplicate one we already have. Maybe we created a date-based rule so that all dates from the past week are highlighted in green. But it turns out that we also want a rule for this week's dates to be highlighted in yellow. For this we can duplicate the first rule, then click on "Edit rule" and make the relevant adjustments.
Rearrange the rules
The rules listed in the tool are in the order they are applied. This means that if you have more than one rule for the same set of cells, they will be applied in the order they are displayed. Luckily, there is a possibility to rearrange this order.
We simply select a rule that we want to move up or down and use the corresponding rule for this.
In addition to rearranging the rules, we may also at some point want to prevent them from being applied. In this case we should check the box on the right for the rule "Stop if true". Then if the rule is applied and conditional formatting is applied, no more rules will be applied.