How to highlight calculated fields in an Excel spreadsheet? - excel

Question

Is there a simple way to do this, via macro or otherwise? By calculated field I mean a field that is computed from other fields, versus raw entered values. By highlight I mean colored differently. I need this to better understand a large spreadsheet from a client.

Answer 1

To do it manually, press the F5 key to bring up the GoTo dialog. Click the Special Cells button. On the next screen, select Formulas (it's an option on the right).
Excel will select all of the cells that match. Now it's just a matter of applying formatting.

Answer 2

I'm going to assume you're only talking about cell formulas rather than VBA calculations here, since you could set the cell colour in your VBA procedure if you're doing it that way.
The way to do this is to check the cell for a formula after you're done with it, and change it's colour at that point. The relevant event here is Change, and the cell's HasFormula property will tell you whether the cell is a literal value, or calculated from a formula:
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
If Target.HasFormula Then
Target.Interior.Color = vbRed
Else
' remove background colour entirely (i.e. No Fill)
Target.Interior.ColorIndex = xlColorIndexNone
End If
End Sub

Answer 3

TLDR;
Use Conditional Formatting with a Formula to highlight all cells that contain a formula.
Details
In MS Office 365 Version: 5.0.4667.1002, the following works
Select a range of cells.
Case1: Use Ctrl + A to select all cells.
Case2: Select a specific range.
Go to the Home tab, Styles section, and choose Conditional Formatting > New Rule.
The "New Formatting Rule" dialog will open.
Choose "Use a formula to determine which cells to format"
In the textbox, add the following rule: =IsFormula(A1)
Case1: If you selected all cells, use A1 because it is the first cell.
Case2: If you selected a specific range, replace A1 with the first cell in your range.
Click Format...
The "Format Cells" dialog will open.
Choose the format you would like to apply. E.g. a yellow background.
Click OK.
All cells that have formulas will now have, for instance, a yellow background.
Screenshot

Answer 4

Excel has a built in feature of "Trace Dependents" (which shows arrows to show you the calculated cells)
Select the range containing your data.
Excel 2007 -> Formulas -> Trace Dependents

Answer 5

The code below should cycle through each sheet, highlighting every cells that starts with an '=' and colors it the desired color (currently colour 36 which is Light Yellow).
Sub HighLightFormulas()
Dim objSheet As Worksheet
Dim strOriginalSheet As String
Dim intMaxBlankCells As Integer
Dim intBlankColumns As Integer
Dim intBlankRows As Integer
Dim intCurrentColumn As Integer
Dim intCurrentRow As Long
intMaxBlankCells = 40
strOriginalSheet = ActiveSheet.Name
For Each objSheet In Worksheets
intBlankRows = 0
intCurrentRow = 1
intCurrentColumn = 1
Do While intCurrentRow <= 65536 And intBlankRows <= intMaxBlankCells
intBlankColumns = 0
intCurrentColumn = 1
Do While intCurrentColumn <= 256 And intBlankColumns <= intMaxBlankCells
If Left(objSheet.Cells(intCurrentRow, intCurrentColumn).Formula, 1) = '=' Then
objSheet.Cells(intCurrentRow, intCurrentColumn).Interior.ColorIndex = 36
End If
intCurrentColumn = intCurrentColumn + 1
Loop
If intCurrentColumn = intBlankColumns Then
intBlankRows = intBlankRows + 1
Else
intBlankRows = 0
End If
intCurrentRow = intCurrentRow + 1
Loop
Next objSheet
Worksheets(strOriginalSheet).Activate
Call MsgBox("The Highlighting process has completed", vbOKOnly, "Process Complete")
End Sub
It will also stop after 40 consecutive blank cells (to avoid processing all of a mostly blank sheet).
Hope this helps.

Answer 6

Simple solution:
Ctrl - ` (the key just above Tab)

Answer 7

You can use the Interior.ColorIndex property to change the active cell's background color:
ActiveCell.Interior.ColorIndex = 36
You may also apply it to a range:
Range("A1:A5").Interior.Color = RGB(200,160,35)
This applies to Excel 2003, I haven't used the latest version but I doubt this has changed.
You can usually record a macro and then look at the generated code to see how something is done.

Answer 8

I liked Craig's code here, because it keeps the layout of the existing worksheet and yet shows what is calculated and what is not 'at a glance', but I have reworked it a bit so it does a better job of working out the active area of sheets, and I added an 'UnhighlightFormulas' subroutine so one can easily undo the formatting (e.g. before printing). It has been tested in Excel 2007. Note that you will lose any other cell background colouring upon running this.
Option Explicit
Public Sub HighlightFormulas()
ColorFormulas (36) '36 is yellow
End Sub
Public Sub UnhighlightFormulas()
ColorFormulas (-4142) '-4142 is default
End Sub
Private Sub ColorFormulas(intColor As Integer)
Dim wshSheet As Worksheet
Dim rngRange As Range
Dim rngCell As Range
For Each wshSheet In Worksheets
Set rngRange = RangeInUse(wshSheet)
If Not rngRange Is Nothing Then
For Each rngCell In rngRange
If Left(rngCell.Formula, 1) = "=" Then
If rngCell.Interior.ColorIndex <> intColor Then rngCell.Interior.ColorIndex = intColor
Else
If rngCell.Interior.ColorIndex <> -4142 Then rngCell.Interior.ColorIndex = -4142 '-4142 is default
End If
Next
End If
Next
End Sub
Private Function RangeInUse(ws As Worksheet) As Range
Dim LastRow&, LastCol%
' adapted from http://www.beyondtechnology.com/geeks012.shtml
' Error-handling in case there is no data in worksheet
On Error Resume Next
With ws
LastRow& = .Cells.Find(What:="*", SearchDirection:=xlPrevious, SearchOrder:=xlByRows).Row
LastCol% = .Cells.Find(What:="*", SearchDirection:=xlPrevious, SearchOrder:=xlByColumns).Column
End With
Set RangeInUse = ws.Range("A1", Cells(LastRow&, LastCol%))
End Function