To quickly drag the format down, use right-click.

On the fill character (the little black box on the bottom right of the cell),
right-click and drag the cell down as far as you want.

When you release the button, Excel will give you a menu. Choose Fill Formatting
Only.

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Regards,
Fred


"john" wrote in message
...
thank you for your time!
i have a worksheet that i use to compare the prices of 400 different items,
with 5 different companies . but i would like to format the cells to
automatically change color showing the cheapest price. i have already done
this manually going row by row.. but is there a quick way to drag that
conditional format down?

to be exact..the active field rows D2 : D400 are the 400 items
and colums D : H are the prices
i want to know what price is the cheapest of each collum D-H by a color
format.
the color format is not an issue...

now this is the formula i put in row D.. =D2=MIN($D$2:$H$2) with a color
format to black pattern and white font... i tried to drag the field of D2:H2
with
this format .. however what happens is this..
=D2=MIN($D$2:$H$2)
=D3=MIN($D$2:$H$2)
=D4=MIN($D$2:$H$2) ...... etc ending at
=D400=MIN($D$2:$H$2)

what i ended up doing is changing the two numbers in each of the 400 rows
final row was
=D400=MIN($D$2:$H$2) to =D400=MIN($D$400:$D$400) in the formula for each
row...D2 to D400. this took me over an hour... i was just hoping someone
knew how to do
the easy format.
thnx jt