Conditional Formatting with Formulas
Highlight rows using business rules instead of manual colors.
What this solves
Highlight late orders or price increases. This pattern is useful when the business question is clear but a generic tutorial is too abstract.
The rule
Use a formula that returns TRUE for the first row, then apply it to the full range.
=$E2>0Google Sheets: The core pattern is also usable in Google Sheets; exact function support and locale separators can differ.
Real-work checklist
- Define the business key and expected grain before writing the formula, query or markup.
- Test the pattern on a small known sample where you can verify the answer manually.
- Check missing values, duplicates and data types before trusting a large result.
- Scale to the real file or database only after the logic is proven.
Common mistake
Lock only the columns or rows that should stay fixed when the rule is evaluated across the range.