Patent ID: 7933862

Claim:
A method of conditionally formatting a display of data comprising: selecting a portion of the display of data from a spreadsheet for applying the conditional formatting, wherein the selected portion of the display of data has not been predefined for receiving the conditional formatting; selecting a conditional template object from a set of displayed conditional template objects; displaying a set of predetermined conditional options of the selected conditional template object; selecting a predetermined conditional option from the set of predetermined conditional options, wherein the predetermined conditional option comprises a predetermined format that provides data bars corresponding to relative magnitudes of data within the selected portion of the display of data; as an automatic result of selecting the predetermined conditional option: automatically applying temporarily the predetermined format to a first portion of the selected portion of the display of data from the spreadsheet that meets a default parameter associated with the predetermined conditional option and leaving a second portion of the selected portion that does not meet the default parameter in an original format; and automatically displaying a temporary preview within the spreadsheet on the display of the predetermined format applied to the first portion that meets the default parameter and displaying the second portion that does not meet the default parameter in the original format, wherein the data bars are displayed in association with the first portion that meets the default parameter.