One of the most popular posts on this blog is how to become excel conditional formatting rock star. Quite a few commenters there asked me if there is a way to get more than 3 (or 4) conditional formats in excel 2003. Like what you see below:
You can get more than three conditional formats in excel using VBA / macros. Last week I had sometime to put together a simple VBA script using which you can get more than 3 conditional formats in Microsoft excel. Just follow the below 3 steps.
- Download the VBA Macro for getting more than 3 conditional formats
Just copy the VBA Macro cFormat() to your workbook or place it in wherever you keep all your macros. - In your workbook, define 3 named ranges.
data2use: This range contains the cells to be formatted.
conditions2use: This range is identical in shape and size to data2use and contains conditions for the data range start from 1 to n (n being the maximum number of conditional formats your would like to have)
formats2use: This range contains “n” cells each formatted in a way you would like to format the cells in data2use range.See this illustration to understand how these 3 ranges are used to create more than 3 conditional formats:
- Finally hit Alt+F8 (or menu > tools > macro > macros) and run the cFormat macro. The conditional formatting macro you have just downloaded will format the “data2use” range by scanning “conditions2use” range and using the formats in “formats2use” range. If you are curious to see how the VBA script looked like, see the cFormat macro code
- Make sure you have downloaded the workbook with code for getting more than 3 conditional formats in excel
What would you use this trick for? A giant heat map, project plan … ?
13 Responses to “Data Validation using an Unsorted column with Duplicate Entries as a Source List”
Pivot Table will involve manual intervention; hence I prefer to use the 'countif remove duplicate trick' along with 'text sorting formula trick; then using the offset with len to name the final range for validation.
if using the pivot table, set the sort to Ascending, so the list in the validation cell comes back alphabetically.
Hui: Brillant neat idea.
Vipul: I am intrigued by what you are saying. Please is it possible to show us how it can be done, because as u said Hui's method requires user intervention.
Thks to PHD and all
K
Table names dont work directly inside Data validation.
You will have to define a name and point it to the table name and then use the name inside validation
Eg MyClient : Refers to :=Table1[Client]
And then in the list validation say = MyClient
Kieranz,
Pls download the sample here http://cid-e98339d969073094.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/data-validation-unsorted-list-example.xls
Off course there are many other ways of doing the same and integrating the formulae in multiple columns into one.
Pls refer to column FGHI in that file. Cell G4 is where my validation is.
Vipul:
Many thks, will study it latter.
Rgds
K
[...] to chandoo for the idea of getting unique list using Pivot tables. What we do is that create a pivot table [...]
@Vipul:
Thanks, that was awesome! 🙂
@Playercharlie Happy to hear that 🙂
Great contribution, Hui. Solved a problem of many years!
Thanks to you, A LOT
Hi Hui,
Greeting
hope you are doing well.
I'm interested to send you a private vba excel file which i need to show detail of pivot in new workbook instead of showing in same workbook as new sheet.
Please contact me on muhammed.ye@gmail.com
Best Regards