Hi,

i am new here. I am trying to do simple matcher in excel. I need to compare first 11 characters in A1 cell with first 11 characters in A2:A1000 cells. If the first 11 characters are eqals, it change color to green, else it will be red. In newer version of excel (2013/2016) i simply used format only cell that contains specific text begins with formula: =LEFT($A$1;11). The problem is, 2007 version does not support using formula in this specific conditional formating. What i am trying to do is finding solution for 2007 version. So far i tried to use 2nd column. A column is for value only. B column is, where i try to use adjusted conditional formating.
I used this formula found on another thread:

=IF(A1="","",IF(ISNA(MATCH(LEFT($A$1,11)&"*",A1:$A$1000,0)),"NG","OK"))

it is working well, but only until one special condition happen. I try to explain on example

81740-G40002018051500001 OK
81740-G40002018051500005 OK
81740-G42002018051500003 NG


These are examples of input in column A. Everything is working. If match - OK, if not match NG. But when i put 4th value that is OK (81740-G40002018051500004 for example) after previous value that was NG it automatically changes all my values in Column B to OK, even when it does not match.

Please be careful with version. I need to run it on Office 2007 version.