Excel 2010 formatting issue

Question

I have two cells, both are using the General formatting type, and both contain the same Conditional Formatting rule (data bar of minimum type: Number (0) to maximum type: Number (20).

Both cells contain the exact same formula, but with their own respective lookup credentials:

=IF( C13 ="",VLOOKUP(B13,Equipment!$A$5:$AD$1000,4,0),VLOOKUP( B13 ,Equipment!$A$5:$AD$1000,4,0)+VLOOKUP( C13 ,Equipment!$A$5:$AD$1000,4,0))

AND

=IF( K13 ="",VLOOKUP(J13,Equipment!$A$5:$AD$1000,4,0),VLOOKUP( J13 ,Equipment!$A$5:$AD$1000,4,0)+VLOOKUP( K13 ,Equipment!$A$5:$AD$1000,4,0))

The formatting issue I'm having:

The first case is not formatting in the Conditional Formatting, and it's aligning the text to the left . The second case is formatting in the Conditional Formatting, and it's aligning the text to the (default) right .

What's the problem with this?

Answer 1

The problem seems to have been unsuitable formatting (text rather than numeric) of some of the data being fed to formulae used for determining the extents of the data bars which therefore did not perform as expected. It seems the solution is a simple as converting from text to numeric some cells that display as digits.

Although it seems there are many such cells it is quick and easy to do so all at one time if taking advantage of error checking (if necessary, turned on in Excel Options, Formulas, Error Checking, Enable background error checking which normally gives warning where appropriate by way of a small green triangle in the top left hand corner of relevant cells).

Select the rage required, starting with the indication in the top left-most cell and an exclamation mark should appear which may be clicked to select Convert to Number .