Numbers: Conditional highlight on unexpected cell

Hi ronsconnect,

When the Highlight rule is filled right, A3 becomes B3 and so on.

With the Highlight Panel open, click on one cell at a time to see the rule change.

Set the rule to 'equal to A$3' to make the reference absolute.

Similarly for the yellow rule, 'equal to C$3'

Regards,

Ian

"In the screenshot below, I'm wondering why cell F2 is being highlighted (green) when it has value '1' and the rule is set for value equal to 12."

Actually, it's not. If it were "set for value equal to 12" the Rule 2 box would contain "12," not a cell reference to A3.

Cell E2 is set for Yellow fill if its value matches the value in C3 (currently 1).

Cell E2 is set for Green fil if its value matches the value in A3 (currently 12).

If you had checked the "Preserve Column" box for each of these rules, cell F2 would be set to the same rule, based on matching the same cells.

If you left that box unchecked (which it appears you did), Cell F2 is set to the same rule, but to match cells D3 and B3, one column to the right of those named in the rules for E2. F2's content ( 1 ) matches that of B3, so it is filled green.

For most cases, a cell reference is better than a fixed value as it lets you change the 'fixed value' once to change all of the rules referencing that cell. But you do need to lock the reference onto that cell using the absolute reference operator ( $ ).

Regards,

Barry