Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated March 25, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365
Thomas has a column that contains nothing but text values, such as sentences and phrases. Some cells show their text in red and the rest are in black. He would like a way to separate the text such that black-text cells remain in the column and red-text cells are moved to the next column.
There are a couple of ways you can approach this issue. Perhaps the easiest approach is to simply sort or filter the column that has the text values in it. Excel allows you to filter and sort based on text color, which means that either you could see just the red-text cells or put all the red-text cells into a contiguous range. Then it is an easy task to cut the red-text cells and paste them into the next column.
For instance, here's how you would do the sort:
Now your cells are sorted, by color, with the color specified in step 5 at the beginning of the cell range. You can easily copy it or move it to a different column. You could use the same general steps if you wanted to filter your text values based on font color.
If you prefer, you could also use a macro to move your red-text cells. Here's an example that copies the cell value and font color one cell to the right.
Sub MoveRedText1() Dim c As Range If Selection.Columns.Count > 1 Then Exit Sub For Each c In Selection If c.Font.Color = vbRed Then c.Offset(0, 1) = cell.Value c.Offset(0, 1).Font.Color = vbRed c.ClearContents c.Font.Color = vbBlack End If Next c End Sub
To use the macro, just select the cells you want to analyze and then run the macro. It doesn't copy all formatting of the cells it is moving; if that is critical you can actually use a much simpler macro to do the moving.
Sub MoveRedText2() Dim c As Range For Each c In Selection If c.Font.Color = vbRed Then _ c.Cut Destination:=c.Offset(0, 1) Next c End Sub
If you use either of these macros and your red-text cells don't move, it could be because the cells don't actually use red text. There are many different shades of red that can be displayed in Excel, so you'll need to tweak the macros to make sure that you are checking for the proper font color.
Note:
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2019-11-13 01:00:18
I want to separate my data. But I used the styles at the home ribbon. Black cells for normal and red cells for bad.
What's the formula to separate them.
2018-07-17 21:33:13
My problem is that I have one cell that has a persons name in blue, then no space followed by their job title in black text. How do I separate this data by color into two cells from one, starting with the data in one cell?
Bob SmithSenior Data Analyst
Bob Smith is in blue text, and Senior Data Analyst is in black text. How to get this done?
2018-05-14 11:17:16
Dave Bonin
I think for robustness, I would move all black items first.
I would assume everything that's left behind, ie: not black, was red.
Then I would move all of those.
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