@Matt_Voorhees – It may or may not prove useful, but have you tried using Views instead to isolate records that meet certain criteria?

For example, if you need to see any records with negative values, create a View called “Negatives” or something, and have it filter to show only records where the value in {Field Name} < 0.

Or, if you still want to show all records on the same page, you could try using Grouping. To do this, you could try creating a separate formula field that just checks for negative values in a certain field, and returns the word “Negative” if it finds the value negative, and returns “Positive” otherwise:

IF(

   {Field Name} < 0,

   "Negative",

   "Positive"

)

Then in your View options Group your records by that formula field, so all your “Negative” records show up grouped together, and all your “Positive” records are grouped together, for easy scanning.

Just throwing a couple ideas out there to help you get closer to what you’re looking for with Airtable’s existing functionality.

IF(

   {Field Name} < 0,

   "Negative",

   "Positive"

)

Maybe a dumb question but how are you making the words Negative and Positive red in that example? And if you can do that to words, why in the same formula instance can any numbers <0 not be signified in red automatically?

I’m not making the words red - can’t do that. I was just suggesting using the words for grouping on. You’ll have a group in your table called “Negative” and under that group heading will be any records that have a negative value in {Field Name}.

Then you’ll have another group called “Positive”, and under that group heading will be any records that have a positive value in {Field Name}.

I frequently use emoji as visual indicators as well though, so you could simply add something to catch your eye, like:

IF(

   {Field Name} < 0,

   " Negative",

   " Positive"

)

EDIT - just realized you were likely talking about the red text in the formula sections I made here on the forum. As I said, using these formulas in a formula field in Airtable will not produce red text. This forum software, however, allows you to format “code” by surrounding a block of text with three back-ticks on either side - ( ``` )

When you do that, any “strings” inside the code block are turned red to indicate they are strings within the code. That’s just a markup feature of this forum, not an Airtable feature.

IF(

   {Field Name} < 0,

   " Negative",

   " Positive"

)

Ah! Thank you. I think this would be very useful for grouping, etc. but I’m looking for specific numbers to pop out visually for me. Either the text being colored or the individual cell colored or something of that nature would be more helpful as I look at the overall spreadsheet. But thank you!

I’m using the conditional record coloring feature but on my first try I ran up against a limitation on the number of conditional statements that could be included/attached to one color. I was able to add up to 10 conditional criteria to a single color. Why stop there? Can you make this unlimited? And why make the default name of the condition equal to all the text for each criteria? Allow us to sign an abbreviated name to each color conditional for clarity and simplicity.

For my use case I have up to 25 tests that are performed on a given sample. If any one of those criteria tests positive I colorize the record. I can copy the first color condition and use it over again and again to specify new criteria but why limit it in this way?

To accomplish what I need I have to create 3 sets of criteria to color code of positive results, 3 sets of criteria to color code for negative results, and then use a default color to reflect records that were not tested. It works but is more cumbersome than it needs to be.

Need the ability to color an entire column. Row coloring is not as useful as columns for me.

Need the ability to color individual cells based on conditions and rules. Flagging individual cells would be a game changer.

Just need to be able to highlight or color code text to accentuate the latest status, data or actions

Would like to just highlight a row or column. I feel this is a basic functionality that should not cost me $200 per user a year.

To be able to change fonts, color fonts, change background colors of cells and columns etc should be a very basic function that should be included for a multitude of reasons (I bet each user probably has his own reason), its even so basic that justifying it with a reason seems pointless. I even have more customability choices with the text I write in this little free chat ui here then I have in a pro version of an advanced webbased software that costs 20$ a month. But since you asked for a reason, mine is to make certain cells stand out from the others, for example I am making a list of all our products, certain things might have issues, like the price is wrong, or the measurements are wrong etc, and a very simple, quick and effective way to make these issues stand out is to simply color the cells that contain that information red so that my employees will be able to notice it straight away, once they have fixed the issue they can simply color the cell green and I will know that this problem has been solved.

You’ve got Views for that, even Groups could work. Easier than manually coloring records.

Manually coloring records (I actually mean cells…) would be a lot of work indeed. Personally I use conditionally formatting all the time, and I wish Airtable would have a solution to achieve that.

Airtable is great, but not being able to conditionally color code a field is a drag.

And such a great irony: Airtable does it all the time:

• When you use Sort, the field is Red


• When you use Filter, the field is Green


• When you Group, the field is Orange


• When you select a record, the field is Grey

So, AT, please take action!

Really don’t think being able to put a colour on a field or ideally BOLD the text in a field warrants a jump up to pro plan. It seems like basic spread sheet function that ppl are used to from excel… I’d love use airtable instead of excel but finding it very frustrating as a very visual person to not easily be able to bold or colour text to make it stand out or indicate something.

Another vote for colored fields!

Yea, we still need the ability to just color a column

another vote for colored fields! really useful to distinguish different fields quickly. For one example, imagine having follower stats from platforms like YouTube, Twitch, FaceBook etc. Using a red background for youtube, purple for twitch and blue for facebook, you can very quickly read the table.

does it have this ??

@Katherine_Duh - I know you are working hard and that these aren’t your decisions directly…

but… Four. Years. Later…

And still no conditional coloring of cells or columns? The record coloring is helpful, but not what I think most people were asking for. I’ll use it for sure, but definitely need conditional coloring column by column (and ability to add colors to a field). Bonus: adding comments on a cell would be great, but colors are vital.

The conditional coloring on records is good. But, so many of us need conditional coloring column by column.

Being able to color cells seems like a fundamental feature of a spreadsheet app. Hope this is implemented soon

I would really like to be able to select a background color for a column or individual cell.

Bought the pro plan thinking i would be able to…the little tab of color on the side of the row is cute and all, but how color for about columns and specific cells please?!

I don’t believe the coloring feature you created addresses this initial request. I too would like to highlight two fields in my table. Those fields contain number records. I want to highlight the entire column(field) because those fields require certain instructions that do not pertain to all of the other fields and simply putting this rationale in the field description is not enough.

As a beginner user (day 8 here), one of the first things I tried was to give a column a different background color so that it stands out. I can’t believe this feature is still not implemented!!! Airtable - your record coloring is neat but that is not quite what we request here. Please consider our request - coloring background of columns and cells. Thank you.