In LibreOffice Calc, you can use Conditional Formatting to achieve this effect. Here's how you can set it up:Select the Cells: Highlight both cells B38 and B139.
Open Conditional Formatting:
Go to Format in the menu bar.
Click on Conditional Formatting and then select Condition.
Set Up the Condition:
In the Conditional Formatting dialog, set up the following conditions:
In the first dropdown, choose Formula is.
In the formula field, enter the following formula:
ABS($B$38 - $B$139) > 10
This formula checks if the absolute difference between B38 and B139 is greater than 10.
Set the Formatting Style:
Click on the New Style button.
In the style editor, go to the Font Effects tab.
Choose the Font color as Red.
Go to the Background tab and choose a red background if you want the cells to flash red as well.
Click OK to save the style.
Apply the Style:
Click OK again in the Conditional Formatting dialog to apply this style when the condition is met.
Blinking Effect (Optional):
To make the cells flash or blink, you will need to use a macro because Calc does not have a built-in blinking effect for cell formatting. This involves writing a script to periodically change the cell style, which is more complex.
Explanation:
The formula ABS($B$38 - $B$139) > 10 will check the absolute difference between cells B38 and B139. If the difference is greater than 10, the conditional format will be triggered, and both cells will change to red.
Additional Tip: If you want to apply this formatting to more cells or a range, you can adjust the cell references accordingly or apply the conditional formatting to a range of cells.
This approach should work for your requirement to highlight both cells when the difference exceeds a given threshold. For a blinking effect, a more advanced macro would be required, but for most purposes, a change in color should suffice.
Thanks! Best reply yet (of the thread)!!
Yes, if “blinking” is not “easy” in LibreOffice, bold red or something to that effect would work. I’m already using bold red (in a larger font, too, than most of the spreadsheet), and positioning near the head of the document, to highlight the final result, and have a couple other colors invoked elsewhere, but, I can change that: I can make the final result blue, instead, and make this sort of warning by conditional comparison bold-red.
Note to self that I should probably check into ChatGPT. That is much more helpful than the result Brave’s “AI” came up with, which led me to info. well over my head...
Ok, so, that last is not unusual: I often think I know only 10% of what I need to, and I’m losing ground fast!
Choose the Font color as Red.
Go to the Background tab and choose a red background if you want the cells to flash red as well.
???
Or maybe that's after a macro is added? That part of the info. that came up seems a bit contradictory. Not that it's a big deal, as I alluded to above.