Excel 2007 : Do I need to use Macros or Conditional Format?(new to excel)

Hello All,
Im new to the forum and unfortunately fairly new to excel. Atleast when it comes to Macros/Conditional Formatting. I am a summer intern at Cummins Turbo/Deisel Engine plant and one of my projects is to improve a Database that had been made to track engine heads.


Basically, say you have a list of serial numbers entered on Sheet1...on Sheet2 im going to enter those same serial numbers and if for any reason one of them doesnt match I need the spreadsheet on Sheet2 to turn red. The sheet needs to remain red until the serial number that does not match is removed. Ive been told to use conditional formatting..but ive also been told I can use macros. Any clarification/ideas?

Any Help would be greatly appreciated and I hope to contribute to the forum over the summer as I familiarize myself with excel more.

THANKS!!

Since you are new to Excel i would suggest to go for conditional formatting .but 1 thing is that u can't use data from other sheet in conditional formatting.
so it is better to pool the data from lookup sheet in order to bring all the data in one sheet .
then conditional formatting will help.

Yeah conditional formatting seems to easier to use so far. How would I go about pooling the data? And should I pool the data on sheet1 or sheet2? I need the formatting to appear on sheet2 so im assuming thats where I should pool it

if you want every thing to be on sheet to then goto sheet 2


select any of the column suppose z
select cell Z1.

insert = in z1
then goto sheet1
select the first cell (suppose a1)in sheet1 .then press enter
you will find the that a1 in sheet1 & z1 in sheet2 will be same.


then drill down the cell z1 untill the no of cells in sheet1 is filled.
then put a contitional vlookup based on this newly inserted column in conditional formating.

okay I think I see what you are saying. Now I just need to figure out how to make the condition fill the screen when the information does not match.

Peter,
Your example helped understand the type of direction I need to go. The difference is that I need the spreadsheet to turn red (maybe not the *entire* spreadsheet but what the operator will be looking at) instead of only the offending cell. If you need more clarification I would be glad to ellaborate. It makes more sense to me to do it the way you showed, but that is the way my supervisor wants me to do the project. I gave you a star for reputation anyways
Thanks

So I figured out how to fix the problem. I just did the Vlookup for the original data in sheet one to show up in sheet two. Made a true/false statement show up and then based off that used the IF(OR( function to make it either 1 or 0. Then just used conditional formatting to make the whole screen red if the Sum of the whole column was equal to 1.

Now I KNOW i have to use macros to finish the project. My manager wants me to make a button on Page 1 that automatically opens sheet 3. Back to the drawing board I suppose. Macros are so fun