Do you mean to say that the fixed cell is same for all rows?

If the first cell is A1 and fixed cell is (say) Z1 and test is equality then
use this while formatting the cells in the first row
=$A1=$Z$1
and paste format on other rows...

This will change $A1 to $A2 for other rows (but still compare with A1 for
other cells in the same row) but still compare with Z1 due to the absolute
reference.

"ala4900" wrote:

I am using conditional formatting to format a range of 5 cells across a
single row based on comparing the value of the contents of the leftmost cell
in the range to a fixed cell outside of the range. How can I copy this to
other ranges without changing the formula to compare to the wrong fixed cell
location?