Finding Cells that Use Conditional Formatting

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated March 5, 2016)

When you inherit a worksheet from someone, you may want to discover which cells have conditional formatting applied to them. This is rather easy to do using the Go To feature of Excel. Follow these steps:

  1. Press F5. Excel displays the Go To dialog box.
  2. Click Special. Excel displays the Go To Special dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

    3. Figure 1. The Go To Special dialog box.

  3. Select the Conditional Formats radio button.
  4. Click OK.

That's it. Excel selects all the cells in the current worksheet that have conditional formatting applied to them.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (6817) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Inserting Signature Lines

How to create signature lines in a Word document.

Discover More

Hyperlinks to Charts

You can create hyperlinks to all sorts of worksheets in a workbook, but you cannot create a hyperlink to a chart sheet. ...

Discover More

Finding the Dates for Minimums and Maximums

If you use Excel to maintain a collection of data, you may need to find information in one column based on information in ...

Discover More

Save Time and Supercharge Excel! Automate virtually any routine task and save yourself hours, days, maybe even weeks. Then, learn how to make Excel do things you thought were simply impossible! Mastering advanced Excel macros has never been easier. Check out Excel 2010 VBA and Macros today!

More ExcelTips (ribbon)

Conditionally Formatting Cells Containing Dates

Need to know if a particular cell contains a date value? Excel doesn't have a worksheet function to determine this ...

Discover More

Noting Inactivity within a Timeframe

There are many times when you are creating a worksheet that you need to analyze dates within that worksheet. Once such ...

Discover More

Changing Shading when a Column Value Changes

If you have a data table in a worksheet, and you want to shade various rows based on whatever is in the first column, ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is eight more than 5?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.

Links and Sharing
OUR COMPANY
OUR PRODUCTS
OUR AUTHORS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2019 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.