Excel conditional formatting only applies to first cell

In excel 2010 I have a row of content for which I want to define a conditional formatting. So I select the row, say from B3 to K3, and setup a new rule as follows:

Use a formula to determine wihc cells to format
Rule: =NOT(ISBLANK(J3))
Format: Colored background
Applies to: =$a$3:$k$3

when the cell in J3 is empty, the background of each cell in the range A3-K3 is white. great. But now when I put a value into cell J3, I expect EVERY cell in the range A3-K3 gets the colored background. But only the first cell (A3) gets the colored background.

Is this a bug? Feature? How to do it right?

1 Answer

Your Rule is currently relative to every cell. You want to make an exact selection with the rule

=NOT(ISBLANK($J$3))