This post is part of a project to move my old reference material to my blog. Before 2012, when I accessed the same pieces of code or general information multiple times, I would write a quick HTML page for my own reference and put it on a personal site. Later, I published these pages online. Some of the pages still get used and now I want to make them available on my blog.

Photo by William Iven

If you have a column that lists positive and negative values, you can format it to be easier to read by making negative values appear red while positive values appear green (or vice-versa depending on the situation).

1. Select all the cells to which you want to apply the formatting

2. On the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting > Highlight Cells Rules > Greater Than…

3. In the box that appears, type 0 in the first box and choose Custom Format… in the second

4. A new box will appear, allowing you to customize the formatting. In the color box, select Green

5. Click OK, and then click OK once more to close both boxes. Now, any number in your selected area that is greater than 0 will be green

6. We’re halfway there. With the same cells still selected, on the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting > Highlight Cells Rules > Less Than…

7. In the box that appears, type 0 in the first box and select Custom Format… in the second

8. A new box will appear, allowing you to customize the format. In the color box, select Red

9. Click OK, and then click OK once more to close both boxes