You were very close. Try this. Select the cells you want to format then
Format|Conditional Format|Formula is

Paste this in
=LEN(A1)<5
Choose a colour and click OK
Note you must change A1 to the topmost selected cell.

Mike

"doyree" wrote:

hello,

i have a question with conditional formating. please help.

a
00607
01505
132
12345

i wanted that if cell box contained less than 5 characters, it is fill with
red.
above is all digits stores in text. i made it text since some values have 0
in front.

i went to conditional formating and did
cell value is, not equal to, ="LEN(5)"
then fill box with red
i also tried ="LENB(10)" but that didn't work.

could you please help?

thank you