Counting Colors from Conditional Formats

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 4, 2024)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Ronald has a worksheet that utilizes conditional formatting. The conditions result in the cells being different colors. He wants to count the number of cells that are red in the worksheet. He knows how to create a macro that will examine the cell color and do a count if a cell is formatted directly as red, but the macro won't work with cells that are conditionally formatted. Ronald wants to know if there is a way to count these conditionally red cells, as well.

You cannot directly check in a macro what the color of a cell is based on a conditional format. There are ways you can work around this with a macro, but it is not for the faint-of-heart. The following page on Chip Pearson's site demonstrates the difficulty in determining conditional colors:

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/CFColors.htm

Given the difficulty of the task, it may just be easier to recreate the conditions within the macro, and then see which cells meet these conditions. The result is that you count cells matching conditions rather than count cells that are colored red as a result of those conditions. This should yield the same count of cells, but is much easier to handle programmatically.

Of course, the only caveat to this solution is that you will need to keep the conditions in the macro and the conditions in the conditional formats in sync with each other. If you change one and fail to change the other, then you won't get the desired results.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2873) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Sign-in Sheets

Printed sign-in sheets are a staple at many meetings and seminars. Word can create them lickety-split just by using a few ...

Discover More

Printing Limited Pages from a Range of Worksheets

Need to print just a few pages from a group of worksheets? The easiest way to handle the task may be through a macro, as ...

Discover More

Quickly Selecting Cells

Need to quickly select a range of cells? Perhaps the easiest way is to use both the mouse and the keyboard together, as ...

Discover More

Program Successfully in Excel! This guide will provide you with all the information you need to automate any task in Excel and save time and effort. Learn how to extend Excel's functionality with VBA to create solutions not possible with the standard features. Includes latest information for Excel 2024 and Microsoft 365. Check out Mastering Excel VBA Programming today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Copying Conditional Formatting

Conditional formatting is a great feature in Excel. Here's how you can copy conditional formats from one cell to another ...

Discover More

Removing Conditional Formats, but Not the Effects

Conditional formatting is very powerful, but at some point you may want to make the formatting "unconditional." In other ...

Discover More

Highlighting Values in a Cell

There are many ways that Excel allows you to highlight information in a cell. This tip examines a way to highlight values ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is three less than 5?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.