Example of formatting cells with the least frequent values

A quality engineer for an automotive supply company wants to analyze the 80% most frequent paint flaws. The engineer uses conditional formatting to identify the 20% least frequent paint flaws, so that they can be excluded from the analysis.

  1. Open the sample data, PaintFlaws.MTW.
  2. Choose Data > Conditional Formatting > Pareto > Least Frequent Percentage.
  3. In Column, enter Flaws.
  4. From Percentage of cells to format, select 20.
  5. Click OK.

Results

The cells that contain the 20% least frequent values are shaded red. The engineer can now do the following:
  • To move the formatted rows to the top of the worksheet, right-click the Flaws column and choose Sort Columns > Entire Worksheet > Formatted Cells at the Top.
  • To create a new worksheet without the formatted rows, choose Data > Subset Worksheet, and subset the worksheet by rows with formatted cells.