Managing formatting rules

<< Click to Display Table of Contents >>

Managing formatting rules

On the ribbon tab Home | group Format | Conditional formatting cond_format_icon, you can use the command Manage rules to manage the conditional formatting in a document, including editing and deleting it.

Use this command as follows:

1.Navigate to the cell whose formatting rules you want to edit. Of course, you can also select multiple cells.
2.Choose the ribbon command Home | group Format | Conditional formatting | Manage rules.
3.A dialog box appears.
Note: By default, this dialog box displays only the rules for the current cell (or selection). If you want to see all rules created in the entire worksheet instead, set the Source option to Current worksheet. (See below for details.)
4.Edit the formatting rules to your liking. (See below for details.)
5.Close the dialog box by clicking on OK.

Operating the dialog box

The dialog box for this command has the following controls:

▪Source

Here you can choose which formatting rules should be shown in the dialog box:
Only selected cells: Show only rules that affect the currently selected cells (or, if no cells are selected, the current cell)
Current worksheet: Show all rules for the current worksheet
Sheet <name>: Show all rules for a different worksheet (if available)

▪Rules list

The Rules list displays all rules for the current selection or the entire worksheet (depending on what you have chosen at the Source option).
Rules that affect the currently selected cells are displayed in boldface.
Stop: The checkboxes in the Stop column are something you normally don't have to care about. They are needed only for compatibility reasons with older documents. (Background info: In older versions of PlanMaker and Excel, conditional formatting for a cell that had multiple formatting rules was "stopped" as soon as and any of these rules applied. All further rules for this cell were then ignored. With current versions of PlanMaker and Excel, this is no longer the case: Here, all rules defined for a cell are respected.)

▪Arrow buttons next to the Rules list

The arrow buttons next to the Rules list allow you to modify the ranking order of the formatting rules in the list.
To change the ranking of a rule, select it in the list and then click on the up button (=increase ranking) or down button (=decrease ranking).
This may be necessary if a cell range has been assigned competing formatting rules. Simple example: A rule wants to color the cell green, but another rule wants to color it red.
The higher a rule is placed in the list, the higher its ranking is.

Note: Please note that the list does not reflect the order in which the rules are processed – on the contrary: The list is processed from bottom to top, so that the rules with the highest ranking are applied last.

▪Apply to

Here you can change the target range for a rule.
To do so, select the rule in the Rules list and enter the desired cell range here.

▪ New button

Creates a new conditional formatting rule for the cells currently selected in the worksheet, just like the ribbon command Home | group Format | Conditional formatting | New rule.
Again, the dialog box appears, that lets you create rules and that was described in Creating new formatting rules.

▪Edit button

Lets you edit the conditional formatting rule currently selected in the Rules list.
Note: Changes on a rule will affect all cells it was defined for (no matter which cells currently are selected in the worksheet).
Again, the dialog box appears, that lets you create rules and that was described in Creating new formatting rules.

▪Delete button

Deletes the rule currently selected in the Rules list.
Note: This will remove the rule from all cells it was defined for (no matter which cells currently are selected in the worksheet).
For more information on the topic Removing conditional formatting, see the next section.

▪Go to button

Closes the dialog box and jumps to the target area for the rule currently selected in the Rules list.