Argthtjtr

I'm trying to THE TITLE, that would be the general question; in my specific situation I need the minimum value in each row of a matrix, using conditional formatting of course.

I've only been able to go as far as highlighting all of the minimum values in each row. Example:

in the picture you see matrix G5:I28 being affected by this rule:

=G5=MIN($G5:$I28)

applied to

=$G$5:$I$28

using the conditional formatting dialog box.

The issue remains trying to achieve, in the fourth row in the picture for instance, that only the second cell's background is highlighted (the first 1 in the row); and so on for every row.

So far I've tried combinations of MATCH, ADDRESS, LARGE, SMALL, MIN, MAX, etc, to no avail.

Please help

Assuming your data columns are A:C and your first data row is row 1, you could use a rule:

=COLUMN()=MATCH(MIN($A1:$C1),$A1:$C1,0)

This will find the minimum value in the row, then find the first cell in the row matching that value. If the cell's column number is the same, it will apply the format.

You can create the conditional format for the first row, then copy, paste-special format to the rest of the range.

Range translation for different worksheet location

MATCH produces a result relative to it's own range definition (first cell in range = position 1, regardless of its location on the worksheet). If the actual columns are G:I, the first column in your worksheet range is column 7, so the formula needs to be shifted by 6 columns. You can either add 6 to the match result or subtract 6 from the column number for comparison. You could use either:

=COLUMN()=MATCH(MIN($G1:$I1),$G1:$I1,0)+6 

or

=COLUMN()-6=MATCH(MIN($G1:$I1),$G1:$I1,0) 

The row number isn't a factor, so for row 5, the row references would be 5 instead of 1 in the formulas.

In a comment, you asked about making this more generic, so it would remain correct if you insert a column. That adds another dimension to any formula; you basically need to replace hard-coded adjustments with formulas.

Instead of a fixed adjustment of 6, you could use the current number of first column minus 1. If you insert or delete columns, range references are automatically adjusted. So you could use:

=COLUMN()=MATCH(MIN($G1:$I1),$G1:$I1,0)+COLUMN($G1)-1 

This answer is based on fixer1234's answer which explains the main idea to solve my problem. Here I include the solution which worked for me to make the formatting move accordingly every time a column is inserted to the left of the matrix.

fixer1234's solution: =COLUMN()=MATCH(MIN($A1:$C1),$A1:$C1,0)

changing A1 and C1 to the desired row range (not very important) and adding +COLUMN($G$3)-1 to the formula (very important) to add relativity to it, resulting in:

=COLUMN()=MATCH(MIN($G3:$I3),$G3:$I3,0)+COLUMN($G$3)-1

Note: $G$3 is the first cell in my matrix.

Hope it helps.