Detecting Errors in Conditional Formatting Formulas

Allan uses a lot of conditional formatting, nearly always using formulas to specify the conditions for the formatting. Recently he discovered, by chance, that he had a #REF! error in one of his conditional format formulas. As far as Allan could figure, this was the result of deleting the row of a cell referred to in the formula. The impact is that the conditional formatting won't work for that condition. This has made Allan concerned that there are other instances of conditional formats that have become corrupted since originally being set up. He wonders if there is any simple way of checking all conditional formatting so that these errors can easily be found.

The best way is to use a macro to step through all the conditional formats defined for a worksheet. The following macro does just that, looking for any #REF! errors in the formulas.

Sub FindCorruptConditionalFormat()
    Selection.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeAllFormatConditions).Select
    For Each c In Selection.Cells
        For Each fc In c.FormatConditions
            If InStr(1, fc.Formula1, "#REF!", _
              vbBinaryCompare) > 0 Then
                MsgBox Prompt:=c.Address & ": " _
                  & fc.Formula1, Buttons:=vbOKOnly
            End If
        Next fc
    Next c
End Sub

If an error is found, then a message box displays both the address of the cell and the formula used in the conditional formatting rule.