Highlight tabular data with conditional formatting

Conditional formatting helps users instantly see what matters. Colors and icons draw attention to critical values like spikes, drops, or outliers. Conditional formatting can be used to emphasize specific records or data points using color, icons, data bars, and other visual elements.

In this article, you learn how to apply single-click conditional formatting and use color scales, classifications, data bars, and action dots in tables. This section also covers customizing rules to use icons or text, hide data, and format row and column headers.

Format positive and negative values

Quick Rules let you highlight positive and negative values in a visual with a single click.

Under the Quick Rule section, two options are available:

• Positive – Highlights values greater than zero to help quickly identify positive performance or growth.
• Negative – Highlights values less than zero to easily spot losses or declines.

These options make it easier to visually distinguish positive and negative values without manually configuring conditional formatting rules.

Apply color scales

Use color scales to visually enhance data comprehension in tabular reports by applying gradient colors based on value magnitude. This helps quickly identify patterns, trends, and outliers in the data.

In the Color Scales section, select a color scale to apply it to the visual.

Format data with icons and text

You can apply conditional formatting based on icons/ratings and even deliver ABC segmentations in a single click. Click Classification

• Text: Text-based classification is commonly used to categorize performance. Select the classification text type.

• Icons: Select the icons set to use for conditional formatting.

Compare proportions with data bars

Insert colored bars inside a cell to show how a given cell value compares to others, making it easy to spot the highest and lowest values at a glance. Select the measure, then click Data Bars and select the bar color.

Indicate deviation with action dots and colors

Action dots and colors represent the degree to which the cell values deviate from the desired range/value in the measure. Adding them to the cells helps you assess how the quantities compare to the middle value or any desired value in the measure.

Select the measure and choose Action Dot or Action Color.

Compare performance with bubble charts

Use bubble charts to gauge the magnitude of a measure for quick comparative analysis. Select the measure and choose Bubble Chart or Bubble Only.

Apply conditional formatting to row headers

1. In Apply to, select Row Headers.
2. Select the row dimension categories to format from the Target Row section.

Exclude totals and hide values

• Enable Exclude row grand total to prevent formatting being applied to the grand total row.

• Uncheck Show/Hide values to hide values that meet the specified condition.

Add icons and text

To use icons to format cells when they meet the specified condition:

1. Click the button to display icon/text from the Style section.
2. Select the position - icons/text can be aligned to the left or right of the value in the cell. You can also choose to display only the icons/text; the value will be hidden.
3. Choose the icon and set the color.

To use text to format cells when they meet the specified condition:

1. Check the Display text option.
2. Enter the required text in the textbox.