Minimum highlight formula not working for Conditional formatting in excel

Question

I'm essentially trying to create a conditional formula that highlights the minimum value per row in a range. I tried a lot of formulas, and the simpler formula like =MIN($E4:$BF4)=E4 does not work for some reason. Instead, it only highlights a single value and leaves the others blank. I tried the same formula on another data dummy range I created to see if it was an issue with the formula or the data, and it worked there.

Now, according to what I read, it doesn't work if there is text, so I created a different formula to only count the boxes with values =MIN(IF(ISNUMBER($E4:$BF4)=E4, E4:BF4)), but unfortunately it displays the error "There is a problem with this formula", and I'm not sure what else to do. I could highlight each row manually, but for future upkeep it would be nice if I didn't have to.

Screenshot:

As I mentioned, I created a dummy range to figure out if there was an issue with the data or formula for the original one, and in there, it seemed to work even with text and blanks. According to ChatGPT, it won't work if there is text, so I created a new formula stated above to see if that will resolve my issue, but it doesn't seem like Excel wants to accept it, and I'm not sure as to why exactly.

Answer 1

We could get the MIN for the current row of the cell with MIN(INDEX(data,ROW(first_cell) - ROW(data) + 1,)), so could you try

1. Select the range for conditional formatting
2. (Optional) give it a name (data in the example below)
3. Enter the formula, making sure to use relative reference for the first cell (B3 in the example)

No need to check for number

If an argument is an array or reference, only numbers in that array or reference are used. Empty cells, logical values, or text in the array or reference are ignored.

=first_cell=MIN(INDEX(data,ROW(first_cell) - ROW(data) + 1,))

In the example below, target range for conditional formatting is named data for convenience:

(Please change , to ; if needed)

Answer 2

I solved it by replacing a comma with a semi-colon:

=MIN(IF(ISNUMBER($E4:$BF4)=E4; E4:BF4))
                             ^
                             ^