Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Copying Conditional Formatting.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 6, 2024)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
In Excel, conditional formatting is considered part of the regular formatting of a cell. If you want to copy conditional formatting from one cell to another, you can do so by simply copying the cell and pasting it (or its format) to another cell. If you want to copy a conditional format to a range of cells (and only the conditional format), the easiest way to do so is by following these general steps:

Figure 1. The Conditional Formatting dialog box.
That's it. Excel does the rest and copies the conditional formatting, as you desired.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2797) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Copying Conditional Formatting.
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