conditional formatting glitches

[Kat]

Help! Has anyone heard of glitches with conditional formatting in Excel XP
SP3? I teach courses and am considered an advanced user, however, I have
never seen conditional formatting NOT work. A user pointed out a situation
whereby the conditional formatting works in 2 sheets of a workbook, but not
on some of the other sheets with the exact same scenario (different data, but
formatted identically). Basically, the user is looking to have the sum
result match another cell and turn the number red if it does NOT match. Our
situation is this - the first 2 sheets work perfectly (number matches Sum -
no color change), the next couple of sheets (number matches Sum - but changes
to red color anyway!!) ? Why?! Checked conditions, formatting, restarted...
The info on each sheet all comes from Cognos and though the specific data is
different, everything else is the same!! What else can be wrong? There
doesn't appear to be a logical explanation for the failure!

[Toppers]

If the SUM data are non-integer numbers, then it quite possible the they will
not match the comparator cell. Try checking difference between SUM and
comparator, e.g less then 0.001, and see if this works.

HTH

"Kat" wrote:

> Help! Has anyone heard of glitches with conditional formatting in Excel XP
> SP3? I teach courses and am considered an advanced user, however, I have
> never seen conditional formatting NOT work. A user pointed out a situation
> whereby the conditional formatting works in 2 sheets of a workbook, but not
> on some of the other sheets with the exact same scenario (different data, but
> formatted identically). Basically, the user is looking to have the sum
> result match another cell and turn the number red if it does NOT match. Our
> situation is this - the first 2 sheets work perfectly (number matches Sum -
> no color change), the next couple of sheets (number matches Sum - but changes
> to red color anyway!!) ? Why?! Checked conditions, formatting, restarted...
> The info on each sheet all comes from Cognos and though the specific data is
> different, everything else is the same!! What else can be wrong? There
> doesn't appear to be a logical explanation for the failure!

[Elkar]

This may be the result of the way that Excel stores numbers. Check out this
article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/78113

If you're still thinking there is a problem, then perhaps post some of your
data as well as the formulas you are using. We may be able to see something
you've missed.

HTH,
Elkar


"Kat" wrote:

> Help! Has anyone heard of glitches with conditional formatting in Excel XP
> SP3? I teach courses and am considered an advanced user, however, I have
> never seen conditional formatting NOT work. A user pointed out a situation
> whereby the conditional formatting works in 2 sheets of a workbook, but not
> on some of the other sheets with the exact same scenario (different data, but
> formatted identically). Basically, the user is looking to have the sum
> result match another cell and turn the number red if it does NOT match. Our
> situation is this - the first 2 sheets work perfectly (number matches Sum -
> no color change), the next couple of sheets (number matches Sum - but changes
> to red color anyway!!) ? Why?! Checked conditions, formatting, restarted...
> The info on each sheet all comes from Cognos and though the specific data is
> different, everything else is the same!! What else can be wrong? There
> doesn't appear to be a logical explanation for the failure!