Google Spreadsheets Adds Conditional Formatting

Google Docs was recently updated, adding conditional formatting to the increasing feature list of Spreadsheets. Although presented in a different wording (Change format with rules), it’s the same feature that found in its desktop counterpart and is a great addition to the online spreadsheet. Microsoft Office and other desktop-based office applications have had this feature for a long time now and it has proven useful in making data in the spreadsheet easier to read and understand.

The feature is added as a context menu action when you select one or more cells. You can start conditional formatting by clicking the “Change format with rules” item in the context menu when you right click on any cell.

The basic format of the conditional formatting widget dialog is not unlike it’s Microsoft Office counterpart (there’s really nothing much to improve on Microsoft Office’s current UI implementation of this). The first field is the criteria which you want to use, next, the field or fields (depending on the criteria) for the values by which to compare, and last, the formatting to use when the criteria is met.

You can check the text values of your cells, as shown below.

You can also use date values to format your cells conditionally

Lastly, you can do conditional formatting based on logical operators for numeric values.

You can set up to a maximum of five conditions for this feature. The dialog is intuitively designed and even novice users will find this easy to use.