The following conditional formatting issues cause a significant loss of functionality:

Issue Solution
Some cells have more conditional formats than are supported by the selected file format. Only the first three conditions will be displayed in earlier versions of Excel. In Excel, conditional formatting can contain up to sixty-four conditions, but in earlier versions of Excel, only three conditions are supported.

In earlier versions of Excel, users will see the first three conditions only. All conditional formatting rules remain available in the workbook, however, and are applied when the workbook is opened again in Excel, unless the rules are edited in the earlier version of Excel.

In the Compatibility Checker, click Find to locate cells that have conditional formatting applied that use more than three conditions, and then make the necessary changes.

For more information, see:

Some cells have overlapping conditional formatting ranges. Earlier versions of Excel will not evaluate all of the conditional formatting rules on the overlapping cells. The overlapping cells will show different conditional formatting. In Excel, conditional formatting ranges in cell can overlap, but this is not supported in earlier versions of Excel and conditional formatting is not displayed as expected.

In earlier versions of Excel, users will see different conditional formatting than expected. All conditional formatting rules remain available in the workbook, however, and are applied when the workbook is opened again in Excel, unless the rules are edited in the earlier version of Excel.

In the Compatibility Checker, click Find to locate cells that have overlapping conditional formatting ranges, and then make the necessary changes.

For more information, see:

One or more cells in this workbook contain a conditional formatting type that is not supported in earlier versions of Excel, such as data bars, color scales, or icon sets. Excel provides the following new conditional formatting types that are not supported in earlier versions of Excel:
  • Color scales
  • Data bars
  • Icon sets
  • Top or bottom ranked values
  • Above or below average values
  • Unique or duplicate values
  • Table column comparison to determine which cells to format

In earlier versions of Excel, users will not see conditional formatting, such as data bars, color scales, or icon sets. All conditional formatting rules remain available in the workbook, however, and are applied when the workbook is opened again in Excel, unless the rules are edited in the earlier version of Excel.

In the Compatibility Checker, click Find to locate cells that have conditional formatting types that are new in Excel, and then make the necessary changes.

For more information, see:

Some cells contain conditional formatting with the 'Stop if True' option cleared. Earlier versions of Excel do not recognize this option and will stop after the first true condition. In Excel, you can apply conditional formatting without stopping when the condition is has been met. This is not supported in earlier versions of Excel.

In the Compatibility Checker, click Find to locate cells that contain conditional formatting with the 'Stop if True' option cleared, and then click Fix to resolve the compatibility issue.

In earlier versions of Excel, the conditional formatting results will not be the same as in Excel, because conditional formatting is no longer applied after the first condition is true. All conditional formatting rules remain available in the workbook, however, and are applied when the workbook is opened again in Excel, unless the rules are edited in the earlier version of Excel.

For more information, see:

One or more cells in this workbook contain a conditional formatting type on a nonadjacent range (such as top/bottom N, top/bottom N%, above/below average, or above/below standard deviation). This is not supported in earlier versions of Excel. In Excel, you can apply conditional formatting to ranges that are not adjacent. This is not supported in earlier versions of Excel.

In earlier versions of Excel, users will not see conditional formatting in nonadjacent cells. All conditional formatting rules remain available in the workbook, however, and are applied when the workbook is opened again in Excel, unless the rules are edited in the earlier version of Excel.

In the Compatibility Checker, click Find to locate cells that contain a conditional formatting type on a nonadjacent range, and then make the necessary changes.

For more information, see:

Some PivotTables in this workbook contain conditional formatting that may not function correctly in earlier versions of Excel. The conditional formatting rules will not display the same results when you use these PivotTables in earlier versions of Excel. Conditional formatting that is applied to Excel PivotTables does not display the same results in PivotTables in earlier versions of Excel.

In earlier versions of Excel, the conditional formatting results in the PivotTables will not be the same as in Excel. All conditional formatting rules remain available in the workbook, however, and are applied when the workbook is opened again in Excel, unless the rules are edited in the earlier version of Excel.

In the Compatibility Checker, click Find to locate PivotTable fields that contain conditional formatting rules, and then make the necessary changes.

For more information, see: