How to conditional format based on multiple specific text in Excel

Question

I have a spreadsheet that i use to determine when/what clients to contact when an issue arises. in the first workbook i insert a column every day and paste in information about any questionable habits from clients, including a client ID. unfortunately the data i am copying from also includes clients that are not to be contacted during an issue. i have a second page that has listed in column A all of the "dont check" client ids. is there a way to conditional format the original page to color any cells referencing a "dont check" client based upon the don't check listing in sheet 2?

EDIT: there is more than just client ID in the first sheet cells. client id is just included. the format is [(last file received date)(Client Name)(Client ID)(Last X file received date) (Last Y file received date)] all in one cell.

In theory what i would like is to go to conditional formatting, highlight cell rules, text that contains... then select A1-A45 on Sheet2 and click okay. obviously this is not possible. an error shows up stating "this type of reference cannot be used in a Conditional Formatting formula. Change the reference to a single cell, or use the reference with a worksheet function such as =SUM(A1:E5)

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You can use MATCH for instance.

1. Select the column from the first cell, for example cell A2 to cell A100 and insert a conditional formatting, using 'New Rule...' and the option to conditional format based on a formula.

2. In the entry box, put:

   =MATCH(A2, 'Sheet2'!A:A, 0)
   

3. Pick the desired formatting (change the font to red or fill the cell background, etc) and click OK.

MATCH takes the value A2 from your data table, looks into 'Sheet2'!A:A and if there's an exact match (that's why there's a 0 at the end), then it'll return the row number.

Note: Conditional formatting based on conditions from other sheets is available only on Excel 2010 onwards. If you're working on an earlier version, you might want to get the list of 'Don't check' in the same sheet.

EDIT: As per new information, you will have to use some reverse matching. Instead of the above formula, try:

=SUM(IFERROR(SEARCH('Sheet2'!$A$1:$A$44, A2),0))

Answer 2

Suppose your "Don't Check" list is on Sheet2 in cells A1:A100, say, and your current client IDs are in Sheet1 in Column A.

What you would do is:

1. Select the whole data table you want conditionally formatted in Sheet1
2. Click Conditional Formatting > New Rule > Use a Formula to determine which cells to format
3. In the formula bar, type in =ISNUMBER(MATCH($A1,Sheet2!$A$1:$A$100,0)) and select how you want those rows formatted

And that should do the trick.