If it's Tuesday, it must be mauve

Conditional formatting is one of Excel's better features. It allows you to preset certain font styles, colors, and cell-background colors based on cell values.

This can be very useful for highlighting important information and values outside an accepted range or providing a visual cue to associate value ranges with color codes.

The best part is that conditional formatting is very easy to set up.

Just click the cells you'd like to format and select Format >Conditional Formatting. The Conditional Formatting dialog box lets you set up the conditions by which the formatting of the cell will occur.

You pick the operator (between, equal to, less than, etc.) and the value or range of values. Click Format to open the Format Cells dialog box, where you can select the colors and styles to be used.

Each cell can have several conditional formats. For example, you might say that if a certain cell's value is between 20 and 50, the text should be blue on a yellow background.

However, you can format that same cell to exhibit red, bolded text on a green background if it contains a value between 51 and 100.




Before 2007, you could use up to three conditions, but earlier versions of Excel can be tricked to use more if it should become necessary.

Oz Grid:
Excel VBA Macro Code to Get Around Excel's 3 Criteria Limit in Conditional Formatting

GR Business Process Solutions:
Graham Barrow and Ray Blake
Highlight the current or past month in Excel with conditional formatting

Chip Pearson:
Conditional Formatting

Also

Compatibility in Excel 2007

Conditional Format Functions in Excel 2007

Adding Customized Rules to Excel 2007

Demo:
Data takes shape with conditional formatting



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Labels: Customize, Formats, Tips, Tutorials

Who's counting?

2004 has 53 weeks. January 1 is the only day in the first week of 2005. Week 2 starts on Sunday 1/2/2005.

Chip Pearson is the Date and Time guy:
Week Numbers In Excel

"Under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard 8601, a week always begins on a Monday, and ends on a Sunday. The first week of a year is that week which contains the first Thursday of the year, or, equivalently, contains Jan-4.

While this provides some standardization, it can lead to unexpected results - namely that the first few days of a year may not be in week 1 at all. Instead, they will be in week 52 of the preceding year! For example, the year 2000 began on Saturday. Under the ISO standard, weeks always begin on a Monday. In 2000, the first Thursday was Jan-6, so week 1 begins the preceding Monday, or Jan-3. Therefore, the first two days of 2000, Jan-1 and Jan-2, fall into week 52 of 1999.

An ISO week number may be between 1 and 53. Under the ISO standard, week 1 will always have at least 4 days. If 1-Jan falls on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, the first few days of the year are defined as being in the last (52nd or 53rd) week of the previous year.

Unlike absolute week numbers, not every year will have a week 53. For example, the year 2000 does not have a week 53. Week 52 begins on Monday, 25-Dec, and ends on Sunday, 31-Dec. But the year 2004 does have a week 53, from Monday, 27-Dec , through Friday, 31-Dec."

The first week of 2005 should start on January 3. The first and second would be part of week 53 of 2004.

Wikipedia:
Week Dates

If your week starts on a different day, you can use the Analysis ToolPac function:
=WEEKNUM(A1, 2) for a week that starts on Monday, =WEEKNUM(A1) if it starts on Sunday.

Also this from ExcelTip.com:
Weeknumbers using VBA in Microsoft Excel

"The function WEEKNUM() in the Analysis Toolpack addin calculates the correct week number for a given date, if you are in the U.S. The user defined function shown here will calculate the correct week number depending on the national language settings on your computer."

In Access:
DatePart Function

If your work week is always Saturday through Friday then

datepart("ww",[DateField],7,1)

will return 1 for 1/1/2005 through 1/7/2005, 2 for January 8-14/2005, etc.
Otherwise use 1 for Sunday through 7 for Saturday.

The last number sets these parameters:

1, Start with week in which January 1 occurs (default).
2, Start with the first week that has at least four days in the new year.
3, Start with first full week of the year.



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Labels: Formats, Functions, Tips

Go back

"When you use Windows Explorer or the desktop to create a new 2007 Microsoft Office file, a new Office file is created in an XML file format (.dox or .xlsx). For example, this behavior occurs when you right-click the desktop, you point to New, and then you click Microsoft Office Word Document. By default, files that you create in the 2007 Office system are in XML file formats.

This article is about how to create legacy Office files, such as .doc files, .xls files, .ppt files, or .mdb files in the 2007 Office system. You can create legacy Office files without opening any Office applications. To do this, you must modify some settings. The modified settings will apply to all the users who log on to the computer."

Labels: Formats

Copy/Paste formatting in Word, PowerPoint or Excel

Labels: Formats

Formatting bloat

For more information, check out:

How to reset the last cell in Excel 2007

Microsoft Knowledge Base article 211478

Also see:

Spreadsheet Diet

Beyond Technology:
Identifying the Real Last Cell

Microsoft:
Formatting Cleaner Add-in



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Labels: Formats, Tips, Troubleshooting

Control input

"Data validation is a tool that can help you control the input/changes someone can make in a spreadsheet. It can help you or your users to make choices, guide them to make relevant input/changes, or restrict input to a specific type of data or structure. It can help you or your users to save time and to keep formulae working properly."

Also:

Contextures:
Excel -- Data Validation

Ozgrid:
Data Validation and Conditional Formatting

MrExcel:
Data Validation

Microsoft Office Online:
Overview and samples of data validation

Microsoft Downloads:
Sample: Data Validation



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Labels: Formats

Point to the spot

Labels: Customize, Formats, Tips

Format don't show

1. Select the range
   
   
2. Goto Format>Conditional Formatting
   
   
3. Select Formula Is
   
   
4. Enter
   =A2=A1
   
   
5. Click the Format button.
   
   
6. Select a font color to match the cell background color.
   
   
7. Click OK and OK

1. Select the range
   
   
2. Go to Format>Conditional Formatting
   
   
3. Choose Formula Is
   
   
4. Enter
   =COUNTIF($A$2:$A$100,A2)>1
   
   
5. Click the Format button.
   
   
6. Select a font or background color for highlighting.
   
   
7. Click OK and OK

Labels: Formats, Tips

Not everyone is going to jump at once

Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Excel, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint versions 2000 through 2003 cannot natively open documents that are stored in the Office Open XML Formats in 2007 Microsoft Office programs.

You can install the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats to open or to save 2007 Office files.

Microsoft Office XP and 2003

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

After you install the Compatibility Pack, you can use your existing version of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to open, edit, and save the file formats that are new to Word 2007, Excel 2007, or PowerPoint 2007. For example:

• You can open Word, Excel, or PowerPoint 2007 files by double-clicking them exactly as you do with your existing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint presentation(s).
  
• You can save Word, Excel, or PowerPoint 2007 files by clicking the Save button in your version of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.

Microsoft Office 2000

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

Word 2000

• After you install the Compatibility Pack, you can open, edit, and save the document file formats that are new to Word 2007 within Word 2000.
  
• You can open files in the formats that are new to Word 2007 by double-clicking the files.
  
• You can save files in the formats that are new to Word 2007 by clicking Save in Word 2000.

Excel 2000 and PowerPoint 2000

• After you install the Compatibility Pack, you can open and save the file formats that are new to Excel 2007 and to PowerPoint 2007 from the Microsoft Windows operating system.
  
• You can open files in the formats that are new to Excel 2007 and to PowerPoint 2007 by double-clicking the file on the desktop, in the My Documents folder, or in Microsoft Windows Explorer.
  
• You can save files in the formats that are new to Excel 2007 and to PowerPoint 2007 by right-clicking an Excel 2000 file or a PowerPoint 2000 file and then clicking Save As.

Labels: Addins, Formats