not even close..that format compares all the prices of all the items .. i am
comparing prices only in colum D E F G & H in row 2
then prices in colum D E F G & H in row 3
to .................. D E F G & H in row 400
thnx for trying!
"Bernard Liengme" wrote:

Select D2:H400
Use Format | Conditional Formatting
In the dialog use: "Cell Value Is" - "Equal to" - =MIN(D$16:D$24) and set
the colour
Note where the $ signs are in the formula
best wishes

--
Bernard V Liengme
www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
remove caps from email

"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