Excel Conditional formatting with weighted total

Question

I have sets of values in rows in Excel First row contains weights of how much each value in each column contributes to weighted total. Now, I want to mark in each following row the value that contributed to the weighted total the most, by changing its background. I played with conditional formatting, but my Excel skills are modest, to say the least. So, how do I do that?

Answer 1

Here's what I think you are trying to do: You have a list of numbers (they happen to be weights, but that's not important). You want the largest number to be highlighted differently.

Suppose the cells are in the range A1:A8.

1. Select the range A1:A8.
2. Select Conditional Formatting (Format | Conditional Formatting)
3. Enter the condition Cell Value is/Equal To/=MAX(A1:A8)
4. Click the Format... button and set the Pattern to affect the background.

(Tested on Excel 2003 on Windows.)