Conditional formatting won't accept font change?

  • Thread starter Thread starter davegb
  • Start date Start date
D

davegb

Was reading a bit on Conditional Formatting as I using quite a bit of
it in a series of spreadsheets I'm doing. I read in this NG that you
can't change fonts with CF and I checked to see is this was true. It's
true in XL2000. But what I can't figure out is why is there a list of
fonts in the CF dialog box that's always, as near as I can tell, grayed
out. Anyone know what's going on here?
Thanks for the help!
 
I assume it was more efficient for the programmers to use the existing
Font format dialog tab, than to create one specifically for conditional
formatting.

Also, the consistency helps users, who are familiar with the layout of
the existing dialog.

This fits the pattern of many other features that are dimmed when not
available. For example, if a worksheet is protected, many of the toolbar
buttons are dimmed, but they're still in their normal position.
 
They are just using the normal format / cells dialog box and graying out the
bits you can't use in CF. Saves rewriting to leave a blank ugly area in the
dialog box, and also shows you that you can't change fonts, so hopefully
saves you looking for ways to do so :-)

Notice that you don't see all the tabs that you normally would when using
Format / cells, just the ones with elements you can change via CF, and where
you have a mix on a tab of ones you can and ones you can't, they just gray
out the ones you can't leaving the others available.
 
In xl2003, there's a note at the bottom:

For Conditional Formatting you can set Font Style, Underline, Color, and
Strikethrough.

Why did MS decide to reuse the same dialog (hiding tabs) as format|cells, who
knows?

My bet is that the programmer who decided to do this thought it was easier and
even showed a consistent interface to the user.
 
Thanks for the replies. I should have thought about it from a
programming and consistency POV.
 
Dave,

Can't change font with CF, as has been pointed out. If you need that, an
event-fired macro can do it.
 
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