12/04/2025
11 am PT / 12 pm MT / 1 pm CT / 2 pm ET
*approximate length: 45 minutes to 1 hour
Presenter: David Ringstrom, CPA
The Conditional Formatting feature in Excel enables you to draw attention to different aspects of your data by applying on-demand colors, number formatting, and borders. In this presentation author and Excel expert David Ringstrom, CPA, helps you delve into and master the art of conditional formatting. Nuances such as identifying duplicate values, filtering by color or icon, and creating in-cell charts with Data bars will be covered. You'll also see how to create formula-based Conditional Formatting rules.
David is the author of “Microsoft Excel 365 for Dummies”, “Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures”, and has written or co-authored six other books. He demonstrates every technique at least twice: first, on a PowerPoint slide with numbered steps, and second, in the subscription-based Excel for Microsoft 365. David draws your attention to any differences in Excel 2021, 2019 or 2016 during the presentation and in his detailed handouts. The handouts include an Excel workbook with most of the examples he uses during his demonstrations.
Excel for Microsoft 365 is a subscription-based product that receives periodic feature updates. Conversely, perpetually licensed versions have year numbers in their names and do not receive any feature updates.
Who should attend: Professionals seeking to use Microsoft Excel more effectively.
Topics typically covered:
- Removing Conditional Formatting rules when they are no longer needed.
- Managing multiple Conditional Formatting rules within a worksheet.
- Applying color scales to highlight date ranges with Conditional Formatting.
- Representing numbers visually using icon sets in Conditional Formatting.
- Using a custom number format to hide cell values while displaying Data Bars.
- Color-coding cells that fall within a specified range.
- Identifying and highlighting duplicate entries in a list using Conditional Formatting.
- Applying Conditional Formatting to highlight the top ten (or a custom number) of values in a column.
- Enhancing numerical data visualization with Data Bars in Conditional Formatting.
- Highlighting amounts greater than a specified value using Conditional Formatting.
- Creating instant heat maps with the Color Scales Conditional Formatting.
- Most features and functions work in Excel for Mac as well but expect differences.
Learning objectives:
- Recall which keyboard shortcut undoes your last action in Excel.
- Identify which command to select when right-clicking a cell to exclusively display cells that have been color-coded by Conditional Formatting.
- Recognize the Conditional Formatting feature that enables you add varying shapes or symbols to worksheet cells.
Level: Basic
David H. Ringstrom, CPA, is an author and nationally recognized instructor who teaches scores of webinars each year. His Excel courses are based on 25 years of consulting and teaching experience. David’s mantra is “Either you work Excel, or it works you,” so he focuses on what he sees users don’t, but should, know about Microsoft Excel. His goal is to empower you to use Excel more effectively.