Format cell fill based on a range of values

Question

Could anyone advise how to format the fill of cell based on percentile ranges? So for example, I have a row of values. I'd like to format the fill on those cells such that I have cell fill colour for three conditions: above the 90th, between 10th and 90th and below the 10th percentile. If I try to create a conditional formatting rule with a 3-color scale, I am not sure how to format the 10th to 90th percentile range.

So basically what I am asking is how to format a row of cells thresholding on a range.

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Using Excel 2013, might be slightly different path for older versions.

Highlight the cell range you want.

Home -> Conditional Formatting -> New Rule

Under New Rule, there should be 6 options, choose option Format only top or bottom ranked values . Choose Top , 10 (or whatever number you want), and click the box for % of the selected range .

Hit Format and go to Fill, and choose a background color.

Do the same thing, but now choose Bottom instead of Top.

This will highlight the top x% and bottom y%. Also, if you're open, you should also try Icon Sets and you can use Green/Yellow/Red circles or arrows to help.