Conditional Formatting in Microsoft Word 2016 Table Cells

Question

I have a table and it is for a test plan I am doing for a project, there is a column at the end of the table where the 2 values in it will be Y (passed the criteria) or N (didn't pass the criteria)

Is there a way in Microsoft Word to change the colour of the text on the row with the value of N at the end, this makes it easier to spot the places where it failed the criteria.

I know you can do the find and replace method but I was wondering if there was a way to do this automatically so when the user enters N it changes the whole row to red and when they enter Y it changes it back to normal.

Here is a screenshot of my table:

A point in the right direction to an article I may have missed or a direct answer would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Solution

I see four ways you can go from here:

1. Either you create a VBA Macro which automatically jumps in once you change something in your document and updates the table. This will force you to save the document with the file extension *.docm.
2. Or you create two styles (of type character) which automatically format the table Cell and it's content as you like. You would need to guide the users how to use those styles by advising them or you could also provide separate buttons within your document to call a macro which would apply those styles. Also here the macro option would force you to save the document with the file extension *.docm.
3. Another option would be to use a Word document with an OLE Microsoft Excel object. The drawback is the users would need to know how to use this embedded Excel object.
4. The third way you could go is to use Microsoft Excel and use the inbuilt Conditional Formatting of Excel. If you need the results to be in a Word document you would still be able to copy the table back to Word.

Note:

I especially mention the document file extension *.docm because this can cause your document to appear dangerous when you send it by email. Perform a google search to read more about Microsoft Office documents containing macros.

Comments

[kieron oates]

I will look into these, thanks for your help, I don't know why I didn't think about macros in the first place.

[PProteus]

The downside to Option 4 is that it only seems to work if you create a new table with the paste action; pasting into an existing table loses the cell formatting.