Conditional formatting is one of the most powerful & awesome features of Excel. It is very easy to setup. Naturally, people use it extensively. But the default conditional formatting rules can clutter your reports. Here is one tip that can declutter your reports.
Just show the formatting, not values.
Sample the report aside.
So how to show only icons?
Here is the process:
For icon & data-bar conditional formatting:
See the demo below:
- Select the cells with conditional formatting.
- Go to Home > Conditional Formatting > Manage Rules
- Edit the rule
- Check “Show icon only” option.
- Click OK and close.
For all other types of conditional formatting (color scales, built-in rules, formula based rules):
- Select all the cells with conditional formatting.
- Press CTRL+1
- Go to “Number” tab, select “Custom” as category
- Type ;;; as the formatting code
- Click OK and close.
Related: How to make cell contents invisible with custom formatting
Bonus tip: Change the position & size of icon
Once you show icon only, you can adjust the cell alignment / font-size to change the position & size of the icon. Just do it as if you are formatting a regular cell.
More creative and awesome ways to use conditional formatting
Conditional formatting is one of my favorite features in Excel. If you too want to master it, check out below tutorials & usecases:
- Ensure cleaner input dates with conditional formatting
- Find out how many tiles are needed in a room with conditional formatting
- Never use simple numbers in your dashboard
- 5 cool conditional formatting tricks to make you a rock star at work
11 Responses to “Use Alt+Enter to get multiple lines in a cell [spreadcheats]”
@Chandoo:
One more useful trick.......
In a column you have no. of data in rows and need to copy in the next row from the previous row, no need to go for the previous rows but entering Alt + down arrow, you will get the list of data, (in asending order), entered in the previous rows...
This is another great tip. I use this all the time to make sense of some *very* long formulas. As soon as the formula is debugged I remove the break.
Great tip Chandoo!
I use this feature often and it has even gotten the, "how did you do that" response.
Thanks!
@Ketan: Alt+down arrow is an awesome tip. I never knew it and now I am using it everyday.
@Jorge, Tony: Agree... 🙂
[...] Day 1: Insert Line Breaks in a Cell [...]
how can we merge a two sheet.
excellent idea. Chandoo you are genious
Hi chandoo,
I have used ctrl+enter to break the cell. But I did not get the result.
Please tell me how can i break the cell in multiple lines.
Hi, Ranveer,
Its not Ctrl+enter to break the cell, use Alt+Enter to make it happen.
hi Chandoo....
how we can use Alt+Enter in multiple rows at the same time please reply hurry i have lot of work and have no time and i m stuck in this. 🙁
Alt+J worked once 🙁
So I found another more reliable way:
=SUBSTITUTE(A2,CHAR(13),"")
Where A2 is the cell that contains the line breaks which the code for it is CHAR(13). It will replace it with whatever inside the ""