Odd Conditional Formatting

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Guest

I was curious whether or not I could conditionally format a cell if it
contains part of what I'm wanting it to look for. In other words, my cells
contain either "W 14" or DDD 12", for example. I just need the cells to
change color based on whether or not it contains the "W" or the "DDD" and not
the number that follows. How do I do this?
 
You only need to test the first character:
Format > Conditional formatting... > Formula Is >
=left(a1,1)="W"
and pick the format


Same for DDD
 
None of these worked for me. I pasted each formula into the box after
"formula is" and it did not conditionally format the cell. What could I be
doing wrong?
 
So are you telling us that
=OR(ISNUMBER(FIND("W",A1)),ISNUMBER(FIND("DDD",A1))) didn't give you the
conditional format for cells that contained W or DDD? Are you sure that you
specified an appropriate format in the CF?

If you paste that formula into a separate cell does it give a TRUE or FALSE?
Are you sure that you've got the formula that you think you have in CF? It
does have a tendency to throw in unwanted quote marks or to convert from
relative to absolute addressing.
Are you sure that the formula refers to the appropriate cell?
 
Each of the formulas was written for A1.

If you were using a different cell, you'll have to change the formula to use
that address.
 
What was the address of the activecell?
What was the formula you pasted?
What was in that cell?
 
I'm highlighting a whole range of cells and trying to get that conditional
format into each one with the same basic formula. Will that work or do I have
to write an individual formula for each of those 100 or so cells?
 
You have to use the activecell in the selected area in your formula. If you
write the formula correctly, then excel will adjust for all the other cells in
that selection.

If you answer those questions, you may get better responses.
 
The active cell when you select a range of cells is the cell that comes up
in the name box above the header of column A. For instance if you click in
D7 and hold down the mouse button and select D7:D20 then D7 is the active
cell and you obviously have to replace any reference to A1 in the formulas
that were given to you with D7
 
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