Highlight cells A1:A5, with A1 as the active cell, and click on Format
| Conditional Formatting. In the dialogue box choose Formula Is rather
than Cell Value Is, and enter this formula:

=ISNA(MATCH(A1,B$1:B$6,0))

then click on the Format button, choose the Patterns tab (for
background colour) and choose red. Click OK twice to exit the dialogue
box, and the numbers 2 and 5 should be highlighted.

Then select B1:B6, and click on Format | Conditional Formatting again.
This time use this formula:

=ISNA(MATCH(B1,A$1:A$5,0))

click on the Format button and choose Blue for the background colour,
then OK your way out - the numbers 6, 7 and 8 should be highlighted in
blue.

Hope this helps.

Pete

On Aug 6, 12:38*am, Zhi Sheng
wrote:
example:
A * * * B
1 * * * 1
2 * * * 3
3 * * * 4
4 * * * 6
5 * * * 7
* * * * 8
Here "2" and "5" are in A but not in B. *Is there an easy way to highlight
numbers like this for two long lists of data?

Thank you
--
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ask and you shall be answered