Spiff Your List with Conditional Formatting Icons

Many of us use Excel to keep Lists of Stuff. It may be as simple as a grocery list or as complex as a due-diligence list for a corporate merger. Starting with Excel 2007, you can use sets of Well-Formatted Icons with your lists (and replace lists using the drab “x”).

For an example, let’s suppose we are organizing a Lutefisk Promotion Event in Minnesota, (I’m originally from Minnesota, doncha know – Oh yeah…), and you want to Spiff Up your checklist that will track who will attend.

Here is how you do it:

1) Select the range of cells in which the checkmarks will appear (from C3 to C8 in our example) and put a number 1 in each cell where you want a checkmark
2) Click Conditional Formatting on the Home tab, choose Icon Sets and pick the set that includes the Green Checkmark
3) Go back to Conditional Formatting and choose Manage Rules
4) Click Edit Rule and put a check in the Show Icon Only box and Apply

That is It! Your lists will instantly take on new character and professionalism (and it wasn’t even hard, doncha know…)