How to Apply Conditional Formatting in Excel

You can use conditional formatting in Excel to automatically add color and style to cells that contain certain values or meet other criteria you define. To get started, open your worksheet in Excel and highlight the cells you want to format. On the Home tab, click the Conditional Formatting button on the toolbar, and then select New Rule from the menu. Now, click the type of rule you'd like to set, and define how it should work. For example, let's say you want all cells containing positive numbers to have blue backgrounds. In this case, you'd choose the Format only cells that contain rule, and then select Cell Value from the first drop-down menu. Select greater than from the next menu, and then type ""0"" into the blank field. Now, let's add the blue background. Click the Format button, and then click the Fill tab. Select a nice light shade of blue from the color palette, and click OK to add it to your rule. If you're happy with your rule, click OK to apply the new formatting conditions to the selected cells.