Conditional formatting

Conditional formatting can highlight important data points in a table or crosstab and be used to distinguish values that meet a condition (such as being greater than a certain number or within a specific range).

You can define multiple conditional formatting rules and manage them in the Rules Manager dialog.

Multiple conditional formatting rules
  • When you create multiple conditional formatting rules based on the same measure, cells may meet the condition for multiple rules. When this happens, all rules that apply to a cell (that is, active rules) are considered a set. Formatting for the set (of all active rules) will be applied or no formatting will be applied, depending on the rule priorities.
  • For each cell in a table, the formatting set for the highest-priority active rule is applied first. Formatting for lower priority rules can also be applied. However, if two formatting sets for active rules that modify the same attribute conflict, none of the formatting defined for the lower priority rule is applied to the cell.
  • For each cell in a table, bold and italic formatting can be applied only by the highest priority active rule.

Example

In a table with a measure that shows inventory shrinkage at your company’s retail outlets, you could use conditional formatting to identify stores with high rates of shrinkage. A conditional formatting rule could change the cell background color in a shrinkage column to red for each store with shrinkage higher than an amount you specify.

Example

A cell meets the conditions for three conditional formatting rules. The highest-priority active rule sets the font to Times New Roman. The rule with the second highest priority sets the background color to red. A final rule would set the background color to black and the font color to white, but that rule is ignored because it conflicts with the second rule.