How to Compare Multiple Groups of Cells in Excel

1. Open the Excel 2010 spreadsheet that holds the cell groups you want to compare.
2. Decide which group of cells will be the main group, which all other groups will be compared against.
3. Click the top left cell in the second group of cells. Hold the 'Shift' key and click the bottom right cell from that group. This will highlight the entire group of cells.
4. Click the 'Home' tab at the top of the screen, then click the 'Conditional Formatting' button and choose 'New Rule' from the drop-down menu.
5. Click 'Use a formula to determine which cells to format' at the top of the New Formatting Rule window. Enter the following into the 'Format values...' box:=not(a1=d1)Change 'a1' to the top left cell in your master group of cells and change 'd1' to the top left cell in the current selection. Click the 'Format' button in the lower right corner of the window, choose the 'Fill' tab and select a color that you want to use to highlight the differences in the groups. Click 'OK' when you are done. The differences in the second group will now appear highlighted.
6. Repeat this process for every group of cells that you want to compare against the original group.