In excel conditional formatting basics article, we have learned the basics of excel conditional formatting. In this and the next 4 posts, we will learn some more nifty uses of excel conditional formatting.
Let us see how we can highlight top 5 or 10 values in a list using excel as shown aside:
To do this, you need to learn the excel formula – LARGE (more on large formula)
Large formula is used to fetch the nth largest value from a range of numbers. Refer to the above link for easy to understand help on large (and SMALL too)
To highlight the top 10 values,
1. Select the range of values and launch conditional formatting dialog.
2. Assuming you have cells in the range c5: c30, In the formula we need to specify a condition that would be true only if a value is more than or equal to the top 10th value in the range c5:c30 – LARGE($C$5:$C$30,10), thus our formula will be, C5>=LARGE($C$5:$C$30,10)
3. Finally specify the formatting you want to apply. When you are done, press ok.
That is all.
If you want to highlight the entire row instead of a cell, you should use $C5 instead of C5. Why so? That is your home work. Here is a little tip on using relative vs. absolute cell references in excel.
To highlight bottom 10 in a list, all you need to do is change the formula from LARGE to SMALL.
Download the example workbook and learn how to highlight top 10 values in a range.
In the next article
We will learn how you can search a spreadsheet full of data using conditional formatting. So stay tuned and if you havent already, join our newsletter.
8 Responses to “Top 5 keyboard shortcuts for Excel Charts”
As far as I remember (checked, again, 2 minutes ago) in my "Excel 2013" in order to select various chart elements I need to use the Arrow keys and not the TAB key.
Practically, the TAB key does nothing (within a Chart).
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Michael (Micky) Avidan
Thanks for pointing this out. This is how I remember it too, but when I was recording the video yesterday, only TAB key worked. MS must have changed the keys in Excel 2016. I have edited the post to include both keys.
The key navigation on charts is different in 2016.
TAB cycles through a layer of objects (SHIFT+TAB cycles backwards)
ENTER move down a layer
ESC moves up a layer
So on a column chart with title/legend/data labels if you select the plotarea the TAB will go through Title > Legend > Plotarea.
ENTER at plotarea will then select Vertical axis. Tab will take you through
Horizontal axis > gridlines > Series > Horizontal Axis.
ENTER with series selected will then allow you to TAB through individual data points and data labels.
If you ENTER on datalabels you can TAB through each data label.
ALT + F1 : to create default chart
ALT+E S T = CTRL + ALT + V, T : I find that easier to remember
I second what Michael already said about TAB and arrow keys. I can't help but think if this is related to the "," or ";" as separator. I prefer to use the chart tools - layout- drop down box, anyway.
Got to be F11 for instant charting. Highlight your data , hit F11 and voila! ?
Ctrl+1 is the most important chart shortcut. In fact, it works for any Excel object: whatever is selected, Ctrl+1 opens the task pane or dialog to format that object.
Somewhere along the line, maybe when Excel 2016 came out, the arrow keys stopped working to cycle through the elements of a chart. But what works is holding Ctrl while clicking the arrow keys. I haven't gotten used to the Tab and other keys, but as long as Ctrl+Arrow works, I'm good.
And F4 used to be so helpful when formatting a lot of charts. But since Excel 2007 came out, it has been mostly useless. It used to remember a whole set of changes at once, so I get that the newer modeless dialogs make that impractical. But now it only seems to work with formatting of lines and borders, and maybe fills. I find myself writing a lot of VBA one-liners in the Immediate Window to handle these tedious formatting tasks.
after clicking on a chart, is there a shortcut key to copy it?
Thank you for the Alt E S T - tip. This is more than a time saver. Because of dynamic charts or de-activated external references to data when you make the charts, you often have empty charts that are otherwise impossible to format. So this shortcut helps adressing that. I will work with it more and see if there remain some obstacles.