Conditional Formatting If Cell Contains Any Text – Excel & Google Sheets

This tutorial will demonstrate how to highlight cells that contain any text using Conditional Formatting in Excel and Google Sheets.

Highlight Cells That Contain Text

To highlight cells that contain any text at all, you can create a Conditional Formatting custom formula rule.

1. Select the range you want to apply formatting to.
2. In the Ribbon, select Home > Conditional Formatting > New Rule.

3. Select Use a formula to determine which cells to format, and enter the following formula (with the ISTEXT Function):

=ISTEXT(B4)

4. Click on the Format button and select your desired formatting.

5. Click OK, then OK again to return to the Conditional Formatting Rules Manager.

6. Click Apply to apply the formatting to your selected range, then Close.

This formula will return TRUE when the cell contains any text and will therefore format the text in those cells accordingly.

Note: You can also use Conditional Formatting to highlight cells with specific text.

Highlight Cells That Contain Text in Google Sheets

Highlighting cells that contain text in Google Sheets is similar.

1. Highlight the cells you wish to format, and then click on Format > Conditional Formatting.

2. The Apply to range section will already be filled in.

3. From the Format Rules section, select Custom formula is and type in the formula.

4. Select the fill style for the cells that meet the criteria.

5. Click Done to apply the rule.