Sorting Conditional Formats Properly

Andre has a table of data that includes some conditionally formatted cells in column M. The formatting is based on conditions in cells of the same row in columns G and H. When he sorts the table, the conditional formatting seems to stay with the original row. Thus, if the original cell was M10 (tied to cells G10 and H10), after the sort the cell ends up in M7, but it is still tied to G10 and H10. It should, instead, now be tied to G7 and H7. Andre wonders how he can get Excel to sort his conditional formatting references properly.

This problem is most likely related to how your referencing is done in your conditional format rules. Typically, when you reference cells when setting up a rule, Excel defaults to absolute referencing. In other words, your rule may look something like this:

=AND($G$10=1, $H$10=1)

The dollar signs indicate that whatever follows (either the column reference—G or H—or the row reference—10) is absolute and should not be modified by Excel. This means that when the rows are sorted, the references in the rules are not modified and they will still point to the original rows. If you want the references to change, then you'll need to modify the rules to remove the dollar signs before the row references:

=AND($G10=1, $H10=1)

It is not necessary to remove the dollar signs from the column references because your sorting isn't modifying those column references.

If you are still running into problems with the rules after sorting, it is possible that not all your data is getting included in the sort. This is particularly true if you leave it up to Excel to select your data table automatically for the sorting operation. Make sure you select the entire data table before sorting and this should solve the problem.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (9951) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, and 2013.