HCR – Greater Than
Highlight Cell Rules - Greater Than
With Excel’s preset conditional formatting tool, Highlight Cell Rules, you can alter a range of cells’ appearances according to your own criteria.
One of the alternatives for the criterion is Greater Than…
The Highlight Cell Rules section of the conditional formatting menu looks like this:
Highlight Cell Rule - Greater Than Example
When a cell value exceeds your set value, the “Greater Than…” Highlight Cell Rule will highlight the cell with one of the appearance options.
It works with a text value as well as a number as the supplied value.
“65” is the designated value in this example.
Any range can be selected as the one to which the Highlight Cell Rule should be applied. It could consist of a few cells, one row, one column, or a mix of several rows, columns, and cells.
Let’s use the HP values to apply the rule.
“Greater Than…” Emphasize Cell Rule, sequentially:
- Select the range C2:C8 for HP values
2. Click on the Conditional Formatting icon 
in the ribbon, from Home menu
3. Select Highlight Cell Rules from the drop-down menu
4. Select Greater Than… from the menu
This will cause a dialog box to popup, allowing you to choose the appearance option and value.
5. 65 should be entered into the input field.
6. From the dropdown menu, choose “Green Fill with Dark Green Text” as the appearance choice.
Now, the cells with values greater than “65” will be highlighted in green:
With HP values more than 65, Gyarados, Lapras, and Vaporeon are emphasized.
Note: Because the rule does not include the stated amount directly, Jolteon’s HP value of 65 is not highlighted.
Note: Manage Rules allows you to remove the Highlight Cell Rules.
Highlight Cell Rule - Greater Than Example (with Text)
With text values, the “Greater Than…” Highlight Cell Rule is also applicable.
Excel will highlight text values starting with a letter that appears later in the alphabet than the specified value using alphabetical order (A-Z).
“Gyarados” is the designated text value in this example.
Any range can be selected as the one to which the Highlight Cell Rule should be applied. It could consist of a few cells, one row, one column, or a mix of several rows, columns, and cells.
Let’s use the Name values to implement the rule.
“Greater Than…” Emphasize Cell Rule, sequentially:
- Select the range A2:A8 for Name values
2. From the Home menu, select the Conditional Formatting icon in the ribbon.
3. Choose Highlight Cell Rules from the option that drops down.
4. Select the option labeled Greater Than…
This will open a dialog box in which you can enter the value and appearance options.
5. Enter Gyarados in the entry field.
6. Choose the appearance choice “Yellow Fill with Dark Yellow Text” from the dropdown menu.
Now, the cells with text values later in the alphabet than “Gyarados” will be highlighted in yellow:
“M” is the initial letter for Magikarp, “L” for Lapras, “V” for Vaporeon, and “J” for Jolteon.
The letters “M”, “L”, “V”, and “J” are all highlighted since they are all lower in the alphabet than Gyarados’ starting letter, “G”.
What about the remaining letters in the text value, though?
What would happen if we included a made-up pokemon with a different name?
Take note of how the made-up “Gzarados” is highlighted.
From left to right, the Excel condition examines every letter in the given text value.
This is regarded as Greater Than and is emphasized since the “z” in “Gzarados” appears later in the alphabet than the “y” in “Gyarados”.
