conditional formatting in Word tables

[Alan P]

There's a feature in Excel that allows you to format a
cell based on the contents of the cell. We use it to set
background color depending on R, Y, G. I want to do the
same thing with a Word table but there's no conditional
formatting that I can find. As a workaround I've embedded
an Excel table in the document but it's messy to update.
Does Word handle conditional formatting in some other way?

 

[screaming_banjo]

To my knowledge there isn't a way this can be done (at least not in th
way Excel does it!)

It may be possible with the aid of VBA, but that's beyond m
capabilities - sorry

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi Alan,

There's a feature in Excel that allows you to format a
cell based on the contents of the cell. We use it to set
background color depending on R, Y, G. I want to do the
same thing with a Word table but there's no conditional
formatting that I can find. As a workaround I've embedded
an Excel table in the document but it's messy to update.
Does Word handle conditional formatting in some other way?

Not really, no. Closest you could get to exactly what you
describe would be to run a macro over the table.

The other option would be to change the FONT formatting
(different font color, for example) within an IF field. But
that would be quite horrible to maintain if the user is
going to be typing in the values (like, impossible).

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Sep
30 2003)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[macropod]

Hi Alan,

If you're working with calculated fields (eg =SUM(ABOVE)), you can achieve a
degree of conditional formatting with the numeric picture switches,
depending on the value of the result. For example, you can get +ve values to
display in bold+blue on a yellow background and -ve values to display it
italics+red on a green background - not that I'm recommending that scheme.
You do this by formatting the picture switch elements in a numeric switch
like \# 0;-0 so that the first 0 is formatted how you want +ve values to
appear, and the second 0 formatted how you want -ve values to appear If you
add a 3rd element (ie \# 0;-0;0) you can also control how zero values
appear.

Cheers