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.
Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!
Conditional formatting can be used to draw your attention to certain cells based on what is within those cells. This tip ...
Discover MoreConditional formatting is a great tool. You may need to use this tool to tell the difference between cells that are empty ...
Discover MoreConditional formatting is a great feature for making the data in your worksheets more understandable and usable. What if ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)
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.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2025 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Comments