Highlight the cell if greater than value in the next column

Question

So I tried experimenting with conditional formatting, but unable to find a way to highlight the cells in the column if their value is greater than the one in the next column under the same row.

For example:

102 | 110 (highlight right cell)
130 | 120 (highlight left cell)
122 | 133 (highlight right cell)

How would I go about doing this?

Solution

Here are the steps for Excel. Assuming the first value is in A1,

• select A1 to B3
• click Conditional Formatting > New Rule
• click Use a formula to determine

• enter this formula into the formula box and take care with the dollar signs

  =A1=MAX($A1:$B1)

• Click the Format button and set the desired format.

• confirm all dialogs.

In Google sheets, select the cells, create a conditional format with "Custom formula is" and apply the same formula.

Comments

[teylyn]

What product are you using? Don't tag with both Excel and Google sheets. There are differences, and what applies to one will not apply to the other.

[teylyn]

No need for two different rules. See my answer for how to do this with one rule.

[btrballin]

Thanks. I did something similar. Instead I used a custom formula where I did =A1 < B1 instead of using MAX. The targeted cells were the values in 1 column. I had to repeat the same thing for the other column.

[btrballin]

Thanks for the answer. I am actually using Google Sheets, but Excel and Sheets are so similar that I just added both as tags to increase the overall reach of my question