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12.0 Quick Conditional Formatting

HOME → Conditional Formatting colors values or adds icons in a few clicks – negative numbers in red, an arrow for growth, a heat map across a table. Each choice creates a rule you can fine-tune later; the rest of this chapter explains rules in depth.

Using the Menu

  1. In design mode, select a table, chart or gauge – or one column of a table to format only that column.
  2. Click Conditional Formatting and point at a choice: the visual previews it.
  3. Click to apply. Undo (Ctrl+Z) takes it back.

Highlight Values

Highlight values colors values in one of six ranges – Value < 0, Value = 0, Value > 0, Value < 100, Value = 100, Value > 100 – with one of five colors: Very good, Good, Neutral, Bad or Very bad.

Example: Value < 0 → Bad shows negative numbers in red. The 100 ranges fit index columns, where 100 means same as last year or on target.

Icons (Tables)

Icons adds a symbol to values in the same six ranges: arrows, triangles, squares, diamonds, circles or smileys, in green, yellow, red, gray or black – and in your corporate colors, if defined.

Choosing a highlight and an icon for the same range combines them, e.g. a red background and a down arrow for Value < 0.

Color Scales

Color scales colors each value by where it lies between the column's smallest and largest value – a heat map. Pick a pair of colors from the Indicator, Corporate, Custom (workbook colors) or Theme palette, then a variant: normal, reversed or brightened. Each column or table can have one color scale. In the current version, the Custom and Theme palettes may apply other colors than shown – use Indicator or Corporate colors.

Predefined Rules

Predefined rules lists the project's global rules – e.g. corporate rules your administrator made. See 12.6 Creating Global Rules.

Changing and Removing

The rules appear in the Element Structure panel under the column or visual, e.g. x < 0 or Color scale:

Conditional formatting shows on top of table styles, including banded rows.

To format a single value instead, right-click it → Format this value... – see 11.2 Formatting from the Ribbon.

Tips – Quick Conditional Formatting

  • Use few colors with a clear meaning – red for bad, green for good – and the same everywhere.
  • For other thresholds than 0 and 100, apply a highlight and edit its condition, or build a rule – see 12.3 Conditional Rules.