Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated January 18, 2025)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
Parin likes using the diagonal border on some cells to show the value as "crossed out." She would like to use diagonal borders in a conditional format, however. When she tries, she can set other types of borders, but not a diagonal border—it is not selectable in the conditional format. She wonders if there is a way to use diagonal borders with conditional formats.
There is no direct way to do this when setting up a conditional format—Excel simply won't allow you to use diagonal borders with a conditional format. That means that you may want to look for and use an acceptable workaround. Here are a few ideas for the conditional format:
If you actually want to use the diagonal borders, then the only way to do it is to apply an explicit format to the cell and not rely on a conditional format. This can be done through the use of a macro, such as the following:
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range) Dim c As Variant Dim addr As String Set Target = Range("C12:C20") If Intersect(Target, ActiveCell) Is Nothing Then Exit Sub For Each c In Target If c = 0 And Len(c) <> 0 Then addr = c.Address With Range(addr).Borders(xlDiagonalUp) .LineStyle = xlContinuous End With ElseIf c > 0 And Len(c) > 0 Then addr = ActiveCell.Address With Range(addr).Borders(xlDiagonalUp) .LineStyle = xlNone End With End If Next End Sub
You should right-click on a worksheet tab, display the code window from the resulting Context menu, and then paste this macro into the code window. The macro is executed any time a cell is changed in the worksheet. It checks the cells in C12:C20, and if any of them contain a zero value, then the diagonal border is set for that cell.
You can easily change the macro to apply to a different range of cells or to check for a different condition when applying the borders. If you prefer, you can change the xlDiagonalUp constant to xlDiagonalDown, depending on which diagonal border you want applied.
Note:
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (10692) 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: Diagonal Borders in a Conditional Format.
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