Highlight Matching Cells with Text in Excel

3 Parts:

Steps

Video: Highlight Matching Cells with Text in Excel

Comments

You're watching VisiHow. In this video, we're going to show you how to highlight a cell if its text matches another cell in Excel. In this video, we have two columns of data: column "D" with domain names that are currently available and column "C" with all of the domain names that we've searched. We want to highlight column "C" if the domain name is available.

1. 1
   Click column "C" to highlight it

   .

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
2. 2
   Click "Conditional Formatting"

   .

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
3. 3
   Click "Manage Rules..."

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
4. 4
   Then, click the "Show formatting rules for" drop-down menu

   .

   Then, check "Current Selection".

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
5. 5
   To create a new rule, click the plus button in the bottom left-hand corner of the window

   .

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
6. 6
   Click the "Style" drop-down menu and "Classic"

   .

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
7. 7
   Click the second drop-down menu

   .

   Then, click "Use a formula to determine which cells to format".

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
8. 8
   Click the third drop-down menu

   .

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
9. 9
   Type the formula "=countif($d$2:$d$500,c2)"

   .

   In this formula, the "$" sign means that it will have the absolute reference to the "D2" cell, that the reference is ended at the cell "D500", and that the highlighted cell will be "C2".

   

   Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
10. 10
    Click "Format with"

    .

    

    Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
11. 11
    For this tutorial, click "green fill with dark green text"

    .

    

    Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
12. 12
    Then, click "OK"

    .

    

    Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help
13. 13
    Click "OK" again

    .

    Now, if the domain is available in column "D", it will be highlighted in column "C".

    

    Was this step helpful? Yes | No| I need help

That was how to highlight a cell if the information matches the information in another column. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them in the space below. Thanks for watching VisiHow!

If you have problems with any of the steps in this article, please ask a question for more help, or post in the comments section below.

Comments