Type of reference cannot be used in a conditional formatting formula
<p>I'd like to highlight cells on B column that contains text from A column. Therefore only cells B11:B13 should be highlighted. I'm clueless how.</p>

<p>Here goes:</p>

<pre><code>     A
1 John Doe
2 Jane Doe
3 Uncle Sam

     B
11 John Doe
12 Jane Doe
13 Uncle Sam
14 Meow Zedong
15 Genghis Khan
</code></pre>

<p>The conditional formatting (text contains, A1:A3) should highlight cells in B.
However, it only works for a single cell. So I'll have to manually use text contains for each cell on A column. </p>

<p>I've tried to force it with new rules and dabbled a little bit with VBA with no luck. The things I've tried always produce the error:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Type of reference cannot be used in a conditional formatting formula</p>
</blockquote>