Hey there! I see exactly where you're going wrong here—you're trying to use an IF formula directly in the cell to trigger formatting, which is why you're getting that annoying "FALSE" text. The good news is conditional formatting is designed to handle this without altering your cell's original content at all. Here's how to fix it step by step:

Step 1: Remove the IF formula from your cell #

First, delete that IF statement you've got in the cell right now. That's what's causing the "FALSE" to show up when the condition isn't met. We don't need to modify the cell's content to apply formatting—conditional formatting does all the heavy lifting in the background.

Step 2: Set up the conditional formatting rule correctly #

1. Select the cell (or range of cells) you want to apply the formatting to.
2. Go to the top menu bar, click Format → Conditional formatting.
3. In the right-side panel that pops up, under the "Format cells if" dropdown, select Custom formula is.
4. Enter your condition formula. For your specific example (turn green when the current month isn't February), use:

   =MONTH(TODAY())<>2
   

   If your condition is based on something else (like another cell's value), just adjust the formula—e.g., =A1<>"Target Value" for checking cell A1.
5. Click the Format style button, choose your green fill color, and any other formatting you want (like text color if needed).
6. Hit Done, and you're all set!

Why this works #

Unlike the IF formula in the cell, conditional formatting's custom formula only returns a TRUE or FALSE to determine if the format should be applied. It never changes the actual content of your cell—so your original text stays visible, and the cell only changes color when your condition is met.

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者Ethan Goldberg