Formatting cells using values in different cells

Question

Hi,
Thanks in advance for your help.
I'm a teacher and am making a spreadsheet to keep track of students scores. I've done everything I need but am stuck on 1 thing. Here is a picture of my numbers file so far:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/app02drm/3424796516/
My problem comes to the last column. I want the cell to go red if the student doesn't hit their target, yellow if they hit it or green if they exceed it. At the moment, the cell does a vlookup to convert the percentage in the previous column to the grade. I've then had to go through and look at each students grade and say, if they get a E, go red, if they get a D, go red, if they get a C, go yellow etc. This is OK for 15 students but when I have 150, I don't want to do it like that.
Is there anyway I can compare the data in other cells and use that to change the colour of the cell containing the grade?
Thanks for your help,
Dean

Answer 1

Hi Jerry,
Thanks for your answer. I think I maybe didn't make myself clear with what I'm asking!
What I'd like to do is compare the value in the final column, which is either a U, E, D, C, B or A with that in the target column, again either a U, E, D, C, B or A. If the grade they get is below the target, I'd like the cell to go red, if they get the same value in the 2 cells, I'd like the final cell to go yellow. If they beat their target (so they get an A when their target is a B), I'd like the cell to go green.
As I said in my original post, I've done the conditional formatting for each student, so If their target is an E, I've a rule that says if they get an U, the cell goes red, another rule that says if they get an E, the cell goes yellow, a third rule that says if they get a D, the cell goes green etc.
This is OK for 15 students, but to do this for 150 students would take a huge amount of time. What I'd like is to have a rule which compares the value in the final cell with that in the target column and then formats the cell depending on the answer.
In other words, 1 rule that says if their grade in the final column is less than that in their target column- make the final cell red. Another rule that says if the grade in the final column equals that in their target column, the cell goes yellow and if the grade in the final column is higher than that in the target column, the final cell goes green. That way I don't have to sort the rule out for each student but because it is comparing 2 values the same rule can be used for all students.
Does my question now make sense? I hope so!
Thanks again,
Dean