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Use colour grades in your Excel cells

Excel has a useful feature called Conditional Formatting that lets you add different types of indicators (including bars and colours) within numbered cells. It’s a good way to get an idea of the value of these cells at a glance. To use it, highlight numbered cells within your spreadsheet, then click the Conditional Formatting dropdown menu at the top right.

Here, you’ll see options to highlight the top 10 values of your selected data, add data bars indicating the highest and lowest values and so on. Move your cursor to Color Scales to see its options. For example, if you choose the first option (Green-yellow-red Color Scale) the highest numbers will appear in green, the lowest in red and the other numbers will either be yellow or orange - depending on their value. It’s easy to customise this colour gradient to your liking. Click More Rules, then look at the bottom of the window that opens.

You’ll see two columns - Minimum and Maximum (see screenshot above). Click the Color dropdown menu below the former, then choose the colour you want for cells of the lowest value. Next, click the Color dropdown menu in the Maximum column and repeat the process. The Preview bar at the bottom displays your colour gradient from low to high numbers. Click OK when you’ve finished. The numbered cells in your spreadsheet will automatically appear with the relevant colour gradient.