Formatting a blank cell due to another cell (Conditional Formatting)

Good Morning.

I am trying to shade a cell due to what a user chooses in a drop down box.

Example:

The user chooses Tuesday from a drop down box. Below that box are 20 questions pertaining to Monday and Tuesday. I want the boxes next to the Monday questions (where the user needs to phyically put in a response) to be shaded to depict that they dont need to respond to those questions.

Sorry if thats too wordy. Basically I need a blank cell to be shaded when something is selected from a drop down box in a different cell.

I tried conditional formatting but it seems like I need to have something in the cell that I am formatting for it to work.

If you understand what I'm trying to do - any help would be much appreciated. Have a great Wednesday.

Originally Posted by ank

I tried conditional formatting but it seems like I need to have something in the cell that I am formatting for it to work.

No, you can refer to the contents of another cell.

Assuming your dropdown box is in B1 with answer boxes in B2:B21 and the relevant days shown in A2:A21.

Select B2:B21

Apply conditional formatting with "formula is" option and the formula

=A2<>B$1

select desired formatting, OK

Your post makes complete sense and its straight forward the only "problem" is that I won't have the same text in column A that I will have in the drop down menu.

In the above example, I won't have "Tuesday" anywhere else other than the drop down menu so I cant utilize

=A2<>B$1

It's tough to show you but lets say I have a list of 20 chores. Based on what day the user selects from the drop down menu - I want a cell next to the chore name to be shaded depicting that this chore does not need to complete on that day.

Daddlylonglegs - even if you cant help or if the above is "impossible", thank you for taking the time to respond to my question.

If someone could tell me if what I'm trying to do is impossible - I would appreciate it. I've been trying various things and just cant get it to work.

Thanks and I hope you are having a great Wednesday!

How do you know which chores need to be performed on each day. Unless you have that information in the spreadsheet then I think it would be difficult to do automatically.....

if you know which chores need to be completed on each day and you just want to add each cell's conditional formatting individually.

e.g. you know that the chore in B4 only needs to be done on a Monday, so you want it formatted whenever B1 doesn't equal Monday, so use conditional formatting for that cell only

=B1<>"Monday".

and choose required formatting

Set all other cells the same way