Explore and use preset rules for conditional formatting Thanks to Microsoft’s preset rules, you don’t necessarily need to create a custom rule from scratch.

A row-by-row formatting rule is as easy to apply as a column-by-column in Microsoft Excel, but you might not get the results you thought you would.

In your Excel sheet, go to Home > Conditional Formatting > Manage Rules. Next to Show formatting rules for, click the drop-down menu to select This Worksheet or a specific sheet.

Thanks to the linked cell property in Microsoft Excel, it's super easy to use the selected value as a condition in a macro or conditional formatting rule.

Identifying duplicate data using conditional formatting One of the easiest ways to locate duplicate data in Excel is to use conditional formatting. Here's how.