02 Apr How to add gradient conditional formatting rules in Google Sheets

How to add gradient conditional formatting rules in Google Sheets: You can now add a gradient rule to your conditional formatting, to allow you to visualise your numerical results through the use of colour gradients. 

To use conditional formatting, open up your Google Sheets page that has results you want to format.

Go to Format on the menu, and scroll down to Conditional Formatting…

This will open up a new pane on the right hand side of the window, with your conditional formatting options. The window will automatically open on Single colour format rules, but on the top you will see a tab where you can select Colour scale. Click on this to continue.

Next, you will need to select the data range that you want to include in the conditional formatting. This should not include any data headers.

You can now select the colour gradient you want to use for your conditional formatting. I have selected a traffic light, red-amber-green, gradient, so that I can instantly see areas that are performing well based on a customer ranking, and similarly, areas that are performing not so well.

You now need to let the sheet know the values that you want the data to be scored on. You can see here that I have added the minpoint as, as this is a low score, and the maxpoint as 5, as this is the highest score. I have also edited the colours so that the minpoint appears as red, and the maxpoint as green, as this was initially the other way round. The midpoint is left as amber.

You can now see all your data displayed with the gradient conditional formatting, which allows you to analyse and review the data based on the colour scale.

If you want to delete or change the formatting, just click on the cells and you can click on the formatting you have added, or add a new rule.

For more tips and tricks like this, check out our Google Apps Tips blog.