Radio Buttons for Conditional Formatting – Video & Download

Oz du Soleil experiments with how to visualize music in Excel.  To do this, he takes the song “Pressman” by Primus.  Oz is a bit of a bass player, so his choice of Primus is…  well… not entirely unexpected.

Shocker.

But what is a bit surprising… or novel… is how he uses Excel in a way that most people would not consider.  Turning on and off different accompaniments, so that he can visualize the instruments that are being played at different parts of the song.  Its an interesting approach that is worth exploring

So Let’s Explore

 Go to the Developer Tab

If you don’t see the developer tab, then go to

Preferences>Sharing and Compatibility>Ribbon

select “Developer”

Please note tat your particular version of Excel may reveal the developer tab in different ways.

 Insert Radio Buttons

In the video Oz shows you how he the radio buttons to place a number (such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) based on which radio button is selected.  In Oz’s example, he places the value in cell T12

Use and Index Formula for the Lookup

Use and Index formula to grab the value from Step #2 to perform a lookup.

Apply Conditional Formatting

The conditional formatting formula that is used looks at cell T14 — which is where the calculation from Step #3 was performed, and looks to see if that value is found anywhere in the the measures (columns ‘E’ through ‘M’).

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