What is conditional formatting?

What is a conditional format?

A conditional format enables you to highlight worksheet values that meet a specific condition. For example, you might want to highlight profit values greater than 30,000.

Note: In Discoverer Desktop, conditional formats are known as exceptions.

In the example below, a conditional format highlights Profit SUM values greater than 30,000. The Profit SUM figures for Cincinnati and Louisville are displayed with a blue background because they are greater than 30,000.

What is a stoplight format?

A stoplight format (or traffic light format) enables you to categorize numeric worksheet values as unacceptable, acceptable, and desirable using different colors. The default stoplight format uses the familiar red, yellow, and green color scheme to represent unacceptable, acceptable, and desirable values.

For example, you might want to categorize performance based on profit values where:

• values below 10,000 are unacceptable, and are shown in red

• values between 10,000 and 30,000 are acceptable, and are shown in yellow

• values greater than 30,000 are desirable, and are shown in green

In the example below, a stoplight format based on the above values is used to categorize Profit SUM values. Values in the unacceptable category are show in red (e.g. Chicago and Dallas). Values in the acceptable category are shown in yellow (e.g. St. Louis and Washington). Values in the desirable category are shown in green (e.g. Cincinnati and Louisville).