How do I highlight the lowest value in Excel?

To highlight the lowest value in Excel, first select the range of cells that you want to search. Then, go to the “Home” tab and click on the “Conditional Formatting” option. From the drop-down menu, select “Highlight Cells Rules” and then choose “Less Than” from the sub-menu. In the input box, enter the formula “=MIN(range)” where “range” is the range of cells you selected earlier. Finally, choose the formatting style you want for the lowest value and click “OK”. This will highlight the lowest value in the selected range of cells.

Highlight Lowest Value in Excel


To highlight the cell with the lowest value in a range in Excel, you can use the New Rule option under the Conditional Formatting dropdown menu within the Home tab.

The following example shows how to use this option in practice.

Example: How to Highlight Lowest Value in Excel

Suppose we have the following dataset in Excel that shows the points scored by various basketball players:

Suppose we would like to highlight the lowest value in the Points column.

To do so, we can highlight the cells in the range B2:B13, then click the Conditional Formatting dropdown menu on the Home tab and then click New Rule:

In the new window that appears, click Use a formula to determine which cells to format, then type =B2=MIN($B$2:$B$11) in the box, then click the Format button and choose a fill color to use.

Once we press OK, the lowest value in the Points column will be highlighted with a light green background:

Excel highlight lowest value

Note #1: If multiple cells have the lowest value, then each of those cells will be highlighted.

Note #2: We chose to use a light green fill for the conditional formatting in this example, but you can choose any color and style you’d like.

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in Excel:

x