Excel ISFORMULA() Conditional Format

Question

I'm trying to get the conditional formatting criteria =ISFORMULA(A1) to apply formatting ONLY to cells that have a formula. But no matter what I do, it doesn't consistently do this. It's quite random, bizarre even.

Here's an example:

All of the above cells have the conditional formatting applied using =ISFORMULA(A1). My question is why doesn't it apply yellow fill for all the RANDBETWEEN formula cells? I have even more bizarre examples. What am I missing? I thought it would be straightforward.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Joy

Answer 1

When you applied the formatting, what cells did you have selected? The A1 in your formula needs to be the activecell at the time the CF is applied - try selecting B2:C12 of your example sheet and use the formula

=ISFORMULA(B2)

in your CF.

Answer 2

It is true in every context when using CF formulas - you need to have the correct cell references for the formula you are using or else your formatting will be off.  If the website claimed that you needed to use A1, then the selection would have started in A1, and they weren't explicit in their instruction about how to use the formatting for other ranges.

Answer 3

Bernie, in the context of a cell entry, yes, that's correct. However, when using ISFORMULA as a conditional format, I came across a web page that indicated that I only needed A1. So, I did that but then it produced random errors. I assumed it was an anomaly on the worksheet.

In any case, I tried your suggestion and it seemed to work. So, thanks for that. I don't know why I didn't just try it myself.