
The preview shows the selected color fill. In the new Format Cells window, go to the Fill tab and select the color for highlighting the blank cells. This will lead to a separate window for choosing the format. Click on the Format button to set the color fill for the highlighted cells. The dialog box options will lessen to only formatting options. Click on the drop-down arrow of the field reading Cell Value and select Blanks from the menu.
The New Formatting Rule dialog box will open. From the menu, hover over Highlight Cells Rules to further expand the menu and select More Rules… In the Home tab, select the Conditional Formatting button in the Styles section. Select the range containing the blank cells. Find the complete steps below to highlight blank cells using Conditional Formatting:
We will go with the latter route and specify our own condition to highlight the blank cells from the selected range. There are various in-built conditions that you can make use of and there is also the alternative to set a custom condition. Works for cells that are not blank but appear blank? Yes.Ĭonditional Formatting is a feature that formats cells according to cell values and as per the provided condition.
Highlight Blank Cells Using Conditional Formatting The first two methods of highlighting cells in this guide will also work for cells that appear blank while the other two methods will not. For our case, if the cells are not treated as blank, they won’t be highlighted. The problem with cells that appear blank is that some formulas and features will not treat them as blank cells. Cells that contain a formula to return empty text (denoted by double-double quotes "" in formulas) or cells that contain a space character may appear blank but are not really blank.
Highlight Blank Cells Using Conditional Formattingĭifference between Blank Cells and Cells that Appear Blankīlank cells are cells that don’t contain any data. Difference between Blank Cells and Cells that Appear Blank.