Bug with conditional formatting in Numbers on iPad

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Level 1

8 points

Bug with conditional formatting in Numbers on iPad

Running numbers version 14.2 on my iPad 17.6.1 and implementing some conditional formatting of cells, but there are several issues. Also checked a new blank spreadsheet but the same issues appear.

I made sure the cells were defined as numbers and want to highlight the cell that equalled the value in cell B10. When this rule is applied, nothing gets highlighted.

I tried another test, where the cell was to be highlighted if it was less than B11, however it only affected B2, but not B8?

Another test to check the greater than option, incorrectly highlighted cells B4 and B8, as the value 16 should only be highlighted if the condition was “greater than or equal”

Attached are screenshots of the conditional formatting.

Anyone with similar issues?

Thanks

Gordon

iPad, iPadOS 17

Posted on Dec 31, 2024 8:59 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Badunit

Level 7

30,456 points

Dec 31, 2024 12:08 PM in response to geemacmcm

I suspect if you select only cell B2, rather than the entire range of cells, you will see that the rule for that cell refers to B12, not B11. And so on down the column. This is because B11 in the rule is a relative reference, not an absolute reference.

If you want all those cells to refer to cell B11 you need it to be B$11 or $B$11 in the rule. Select the range of cells and make the cell reference B$11.

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Answer 2

geemacmcm Author

Level 1

8 points

Jan 1, 2025 8:31 AM in response to Badunit

A clever suggestion, which does of course work, thank you. But this is not properly described in the help documentation which should perhaps be modified to clarify the importance of using the $ type cell reference if a range of cells has been selected. So point 4 of the help section needs to be further clarified.

I firstly tried to type in B$10 into the ‘Edit Rule’ field but this is not accepted, see below. You have to click the rectangular box cell picker then type in the absolute reference.

Thanks again and hope this helps others too.

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Bug with conditional formatting in Numbers on iPad

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