Conditional highlighting in Apple Numbers

Hello all. I'm doing my head in with the following:

  • Im trying to change the text/number colour of the G column depending on the text of the C column.
  • The C column has a pop up between with 3 options: Blank, REV and A/R
  • If A/R is selected I would like column D, E, F and G to have red text/numbers. Or different options. For example column D in bold and G in red.


I probably have to use the IF function but I am not able to get it to work.


anybody here that can help a complete newbie? And please explain it to me like you're talking to a five year old ;)


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

MacBook Pro 13″

Posted on Feb 19, 2024 8:07 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 19, 2024 2:03 PM

It is kind of a tall order. Cell highlighting is based on the contents of the cell, not the contents of another cell. There are no rules like "if text in cell C2 is 'REV' then highlight cell D2 with bold text". However, there is a trick where you can use the "text ends with" rule to do something similar. It requires an additional column for each rule so it will require 3 additional columns in your table, which you can hide later. In the screenshot below I highlighted the entire row the same. If you want each column to have different highlighting (bold in column D, for example), you'll still want to start out like I did.





Formula in H2 =IF($C2="","","~")

Formula in I2 =IF($C2="REV","","~")

Formula in J2 =IF($C2="A/R","","~")

Fill down with all to complete the columns


Select all the columns for which you want highlighting rules, other than the header row and any footer rows. Create the highlighting rules shown in the screenshot. It create rules for all the selected cells. To create a cell reference in the rules (like $H2), click on the green oval in the empty box (you'll see it when you are doing it), click on a cell, change it so the column is preserved (the $) then click the checkmark to accept it.


Now you can change the highlighting for column D. Select column D cells. Edit the rules. Do the same for the other columns.



4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Feb 19, 2024 2:03 PM in response to gino192

It is kind of a tall order. Cell highlighting is based on the contents of the cell, not the contents of another cell. There are no rules like "if text in cell C2 is 'REV' then highlight cell D2 with bold text". However, there is a trick where you can use the "text ends with" rule to do something similar. It requires an additional column for each rule so it will require 3 additional columns in your table, which you can hide later. In the screenshot below I highlighted the entire row the same. If you want each column to have different highlighting (bold in column D, for example), you'll still want to start out like I did.





Formula in H2 =IF($C2="","","~")

Formula in I2 =IF($C2="REV","","~")

Formula in J2 =IF($C2="A/R","","~")

Fill down with all to complete the columns


Select all the columns for which you want highlighting rules, other than the header row and any footer rows. Create the highlighting rules shown in the screenshot. It create rules for all the selected cells. To create a cell reference in the rules (like $H2), click on the green oval in the empty box (you'll see it when you are doing it), click on a cell, change it so the column is preserved (the $) then click the checkmark to accept it.


Now you can change the highlighting for column D. Select column D cells. Edit the rules. Do the same for the other columns.



Feb 19, 2024 2:28 PM in response to Badunit

Thanks for the reply badunit. Definitely a solution I didn’t thought of, bit more complicated than I expected.

if I understand correctly there is no way to use conditional highlighting of a cell depending on the value of another cell?


I found this video which on similar, although not same as I’m requesting;

https://youtu.be/BuSBZd6HKDI?si=WkhdWy5Dwqi0cIVb


here they have a certain value show in a cell depending on the text of another cell. Isn’t it just a case of tweaking that formula so it doesn’t show a value but makes the cell have red or bold text?

am I missing something?

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Conditional highlighting in Apple Numbers

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