How to: Format Cells that are Less than, Greater than or Equal to a Value

Sep 19, 2023
2 minutes to read

This example demonstrates how to create the rule that uses a relational operator as a formatting criteria.

To create a new conditional formatting rule represented by the ExpressionConditionalFormatting object, access the collection of conditional formats from the Worksheet.ConditionalFormattings property and call the ConditionalFormattingCollection.AddExpressionConditionalFormatting method. Pass the following parameters:
Specify formatting options to be applied to cells if the condition is true , using the ISupportsFormatting.Formatting property of the ExpressionConditionalFormatting object. Set the background and font colors.

Note

Transparency is not supported in conditional formatting.

To remove the ExpressionConditionalFormatting object, use the ConditionalFormattingCollection.Remove, ConditionalFormattingCollection.RemoveAt or ConditionalFormattingCollection.Clear methods.

View Example

ConditionalFormatting.cs
ConditionalFormatting.vb

csharp

// Create the rule to identify values that are above the average in cells F2 through F15.
ExpressionConditionalFormatting cfRule =
worksheet.ConditionalFormattings.AddExpressionConditionalFormatting(worksheet.Range["$F$2:$F$15"], ConditionalFormattingExpressionCondition.GreaterThan, "=AVERAGE($F$2:$F$15)");
// Specify formatting options to be applied to cells if the condition is true.
// Set the background color to yellow.
cfRule.Formatting.Fill.BackgroundColor = Color.FromArgb(255, 0xFA, 0xF7, 0xAA);
// Set the font color to red.
cfRule.Formatting.Font.Color = Color.Red;

' Create the rule to identify values that are above the average in cells F2 through F15.
Dim cfRule As ExpressionConditionalFormatting = worksheet.ConditionalFormattings.AddExpressionConditionalFormatting(worksheet.Range("$F$2:$F$15"), ConditionalFormattingExpressionCondition.GreaterThan, "=AVERAGE($F$2:$F$15)")
' Specify formatting options to be applied to cells if the condition is true.
' Set the background color to yellow.
cfRule.Formatting.Fill.BackgroundColor = Color.FromArgb(255, &HFA, &HF7, &HAA)
' Set the font color to red.
cfRule.Formatting.Font.Color = Color.Red

The image below shows the result (the workbook is opened in Microsoft® Excel®). Price values above the average are highlighted in yellow with red font.