improved
Platform
🎨 Conditional Formatting Rules, Rebuilt
What's new
The conditional formatting rule builder has been rebuilt. You now put a rule together in three clear steps — which cells to format, when to format them, and how they should look — with a
live preview
that shows the result as you go. It is in the same place, under Conditional Formatting
in the View
menu.
What you can do
- See the rule before you save it– The live preview lights up matching cells on sample data and dims the rows your rule leaves alone, so you can tell at a glance whether the rule does what you meant.
- Follow three steps instead of one long form– Apply To, When, and Style each tell you what they still need, and a sentence at the bottom reads the finished rule back to you in plain language.
- Duplicate a rule– Copy a rule and change one threshold or one colour, instead of building the whole thing again.
- Hide a rule without deleting it– Switch a rule off with the eye icon to see the grid without it, then switch it back on. Handy while you are building a rule that overlaps one you already have.
- Tell your rules apart– The rules list shows each rule with a swatch of its formatting and a description of what it does, so you do not have to open one to remember what it was for.
- Name a rule, or don't– Names are optional, and a rule without one is listed by its description.
Why it helps
- You find out whether a rule works while you are building it, not after you save it and go back to the grid.
- Reusing a rule you already tuned takes one click.
- Turning a rule off for a moment no longer means deleting and rebuilding it.
- Your existing rules carry over and keep formatting the grid exactly as before.
See Adding & Managing Conditional Formatting Rules for the full walkthrough.