---
url: >-
  https://www.questpdf.com/concepts/dynamic-composition/conditional-formatting.md
---

# Dynamic composition: conditional formatting

In many reports, the appearance of content depends on the data itself.
A financial summary may highlight losses in red, a monitoring report may flag measurements that exceed a threshold, and a scorecard may color-code performance levels.

Because QuestPDF describes documents with plain C# code, such formatting rules are just ordinary methods that inspect a value and apply the appropriate styles.
The following example implements a stock listing where significant price changes are highlighted with color.

#### Data model

The table displays a collection of stock quotes:

```csharp
public sealed record StockQuote(
    string Company, 
    string Ticker, 
    decimal Price, 
    decimal DailyChange, 
    decimal YearToDateChange);
```

```csharp
var quotes = new List<StockQuote>
{
    new("Kelbrick Robotics", "KLBR", 184.20m, 3.85m, 42.10m),
    new("Solmara Energy", "SLMR", 76.45m, 0.42m, 5.60m),
    new("Drennick Logistics", "DRNC", 51.08m, -0.35m, -2.15m),
    new("Marbrenna Biolabs", "MRBN", 229.90m, 0.68m, 18.75m),
    new("Corvidex Semiconductor", "CVDX", 33.67m, -4.20m, -27.30m),
    new("Halvern Bank", "HLVN", 118.55m, -0.15m, 0.75m)
};
```

#### Styling rules

The following helper method receives a container along with the percentage change, and applies a background and text style only when the change is significant.
For values between -1% and +1%, the container is returned unchanged.

Please note that the text style is applied with the `DefaultTextStyle` method on the container level, so it automatically propagates to all text inside the cell.

```csharp
private static IContainer PriceChangeHighlightStyle(IContainer container, decimal changeInPercent)
{
    if (changeInPercent > 1m)
    {
        return container
            .Background(Colors.Green.Lighten5)
            .DefaultTextStyle(x => x.FontColor(Colors.Green.Darken2).Bold());
    }

    if (changeInPercent < -1m)
    {
        return container
            .Background(Colors.Red.Lighten5)
            .DefaultTextStyle(x => x.FontColor(Colors.Red.Darken2).Bold());
    }

    return container;
}

private static string FormatChange(decimal changeInPercent)
{
    return changeInPercent.ToString("+0.00;-0.00;0.00", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture) + "%";
}
```

#### Composition

Within the table, the conditional styling is applied with the `Element` method.
Multiple `Element` calls can be chained: the first one applies the value-based style, while the second one applies the standard cell style shared by all cells.

```csharp{41-42,47-48}
container.Table(table =>
{
    table.ColumnsDefinition(columns =>
    {
        columns.RelativeColumn();
        columns.ConstantColumn(100);
        columns.ConstantColumn(100);
        columns.ConstantColumn(100);
    });

    table.Header(header =>
    {
        header.Cell().Element(HeaderCellStyle).Text("Company");
        header.Cell().Element(HeaderCellStyle).AlignRight().Text("Price");
        header.Cell().Element(HeaderCellStyle).AlignRight().Text("Day");
        header.Cell().Element(HeaderCellStyle).AlignRight().Text("YTD");

        static IContainer HeaderCellStyle(IContainer container)
        {
            return container
                .ZIndex(1)
                .BorderBottom(2)
                .BorderColor(Colors.Grey.Darken3)
                .DefaultTextStyle(x => x.SemiBold())
                .PaddingVertical(8)
                .PaddingHorizontal(10);
        }
    });

    foreach (var quote in quotes)
    {
        table.Cell().Element(CellStyle).Text(text =>
        {
            text.Span(quote.Company);
            text.Span($" ({quote.Ticker})").FontSize(12).FontColor(Colors.Grey.Darken1);
        });

        table.Cell().Element(CellStyle).AlignRight()
            .Text(quote.Price.ToString("$#,##0.00", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture));

        table.Cell()
            .Element(cell => PriceChangeHighlightStyle(cell, quote.DailyChange))
            .Element(CellStyle)
            .AlignRight()
            .Text(FormatChange(quote.DailyChange));

        table.Cell()
            .Element(cell => PriceChangeHighlightStyle(cell, quote.YearToDateChange))
            .Element(CellStyle)
            .AlignRight()
            .Text(FormatChange(quote.YearToDateChange));
    }

    static IContainer CellStyle(IContainer container)
    {
        return container
            .BorderBottom(1)
            .BorderColor(Colors.Grey.Lighten2)
            .PaddingVertical(8)
            .PaddingHorizontal(10);
    }
});
```

![example](/patterns-and-practices/dynamic-composition-value-based-styling.webp)