Excel 2003 - Conditional Formatting

**jre1229** · 06-18-2008, 03:00 PM

Hello! I am trying to use conditional formatting to find cells that have the word "managment" in the text. The problem I am having is that the cells may contain a paragraph and the word may be embedded in the paragraph. I need to either high the word or the paragraph. I can get it to work if only the word "management" is in the cell but not when I add other words to it. I have tried using *management* but this didn't work. Any suggestions?

**NBVC** · 06-18-2008, 03:14 PM

use this formula in the CF dialogue...

=ISNUMBER(SEARCH("Management",C1))

where C1 is top most cell in your range selection.

**jre1229** · 06-18-2008, 03:19 PM

I tried this but it didn't work. I also am not sure I understand what you are talking about when you say C1 is the top most cell in your range selection...

**NBVC** · 06-18-2008, 03:25 PM

So if you are applying the formatting to range C1:C100, then you would select this range, apply the conditional format and use C1 in the formula since C1 is the top most cell in the range you selected... The reference will automatically update to the balance of the selected range.

If you are in a different range, you'll have to adjust the C1 accordingly.

**jre1229** · 06-18-2008, 03:54 PM

What if I am applying it to the entire page?

**NBVC** · 06-18-2008, 04:04 PM

Then enter top-left most cell, eg. A1

**jre1229** · 06-18-2008, 04:20 PM

I am still not getting anything. I hit ctrl-A to select all cells. Then I went to CF and selected formula =ISNUMBER(SEARCH("Management",A1)) and set it to change the text to red but nothing changes. I even tried changing it to "management" since the text is lowercase.

**NBVC** · 06-18-2008, 04:23 PM

Go back to the CF and make sure that Excel didn't insert quotes around the formula....

**jre1229** · 06-19-2008, 08:40 AM

It did add quotation marks

**jre1229** · 06-19-2008, 08:42 AM

Nevermind, those were the quotation marks that you already had in there. I do ctrl+a and go to CF and put this "=ISNUMBER(SEARCH("Management",A1))" but the cell that has the word "Management" in it doesn't do anything.

**jre1229** · 06-19-2008, 08:45 AM

Ok, it's working now but I have it set to change the font color, and it changes the font color of half of the paragraph, not just the word. Is there anyway to just do the word?