Advice on how to visually flag certain cells in a way that can be recognized by formulas as well

[Rnkhch]

Hello,

In my score sheets, I was thinking to come up with a way to flag certain cells that I can visually associate with certain characteristics. For example if a student was sick and got a low score, I want that cell to be flagged. And I need my formulas to be able to recognize these flags. That way, I can for example write a conditional formula that performs the default calculation if the cell is not flagged, but a special calculation or perhaps omission if the cell is flagged:

B1=IF([A1 is flagged],[special calculation],[default calculation])

My understanding is that formatting is not recognized by Excel formulas, so I don't think I can use bold font or strikethrough or underline etc. as ways to flag cells.

Any advice would be highly appreciated! Hopefully without the need for VBA

Thanks a lot!

 

[Fazza]

Have a look at https://www.mrexcel.com/forum/excel-questions/20611-info-only-get-cell-arguments.html

Without VBA, via an Excel 4 macro function formulas can identify bold font or strikethrough or underline etc.

 

[Rick Rothstein]

If you use conditional formatting to change how the cell looks (fill color, font characteristics, etc.), you will have to test the same formula you used in the conditional formatting to produce those formats inside your own function. In other words, you cannot test for the effects produced by the conditional formatting, but you can test for the condition used to induce those conditional formats.

 

[Rnkhch]

Thank you!