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: 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 wouldn't work for that condition. This made Allan concerned that there were other instances of conditional formats that became 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.
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: 
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.
Note:
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (5730) 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: Detecting Errors in Conditional Formatting Formulas.
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2019-07-15 13:37:19
Novice
Lately (after Windows 9603 upgrade, using Excel 2010) when I try to clean up the conditional formatting rules, there seems to be lots of additional rules (duplicates, cells with #REF!, etc) Excel stops responding for each delete rule and modifying range.
I suspect 'not responding' cause may be the extraneous rules that Excel seems to add without my knowledge.
Please help me with a macro that that would remove all rules that contain '#REF!' in the Conditional Formatting Rules Manager, which I can run by pressing a button attached to the macro before exiting Excel. (My Excel developer knowledge is minimal ... most code I cobbled together from snippets found on internet. So, apology in advance for poor coding practice.) In Excel Module, I started the VBA code:
Sub FindREFConditionalFormat()
Dim nRef As Integer ' Count of #REF! found
nRef = 0
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
nRef = nRef + 1
' Will this command delete the condition rule with cell address #REF! (example rule: Left(#REF!,7)="VISA B:"): fc.Delete
End If
Next fc
Next c
End Sub
===
Thanks in advance for sharing!
2013-08-11 07:02:44
Sekerob
Exactly what I was looking for, but, as what need c and fc be defined [Dim statements]?
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