Highlighting Cells in a Range with Data Different from the Top Row

Don't miss that you can easily find where differences in a range of columns or rows appear in an Excel worksheet. If you have a worksheet where most of the data repeats in each row in a column, and you just want to detect where the data varies from the entries in the beginning of the range, you can do so using Excel's Find & Select tool.

In this example, we have a worksheet in which most of the entries in three columns of data match the entry in the first row.

1. Select the range below the column headings and copy the data to the clipboard.

2. Go to Home . . . Find & Select . . .Go to Special

3. Select the column differences radio button, and click OK.

4. Excel will highlight only the differences in each column where cells differ from the entries in the top row.