Excel: Select Every Kid in Lake Wobegon

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Problem: Sometimes I need to use conditional formatting to choose all the cells that are above average or I need to highlight cells in the top fifth percentile.

Strategy: The Conditional Formatting menu offers a whole new range of formatting options. You can choose cells that are above average, below average, and so on.

Additional Details: You can actually adjust the options with "œ10" to show the top or bottom 5, 2, 20, or any number. When you choose one of the "œ10" options, a new Top 10 Items dialog box will appear, where you can choose how many items or what percentage to show.

  1. The top/bottom rules are new.