Microsoft® Office Excel® 2007 Plain & Simple

Creating Better Conditional Formats

Businesses often use Excel to track corporate spending and revenue. The actual figures are very important, of course, but it’s also useful for managers to be able to glance at their data and determine whether the data exceeds expectations, falls within an acceptable range, or requires attention because the value falls below expectations. In versions prior to Excel 2007, you could create up to three conditions and define a format for each one. For example, you could create the following rules:

• If monthly sales are more than 10 percent ahead of sales during the same month in the previous year, display the value in green;

• If monthly sales are greater than or equal to sales during the same month in the previous ...