Hi, I hope someone can help me with this, as I am pulling my hair out.
Please be gentle- I have learned excel via google and you tube so far!

I wanted certain cells in a table to turn red if the answers in another table were 'often' rather than 'sometimes' or 'not at all'.

I used the conditional formatting formula $A1="often" then detailed the specific cells for it to change =$B$1, $C$1, $E$1.

It worked fine for the first 10 times.


Then it stopped working, and after clicking 'apply' the formula changed to ="$A1=""often"" or ="$A1=""""often"""" etc.

I have tried deleting and retyping, but the same thing happens, with excel adding extra "" and =


Why is this happening and how do I stop it?
Am I using the wrong formula?

Thanks for any help, I need to get this project finished for work for Monday.