by If you are a regular visitor of this blog, you've probably noticed a few articles covering different aspects of Excel conditional formatting. And now we will leverage this knowledge and create spreadsheets that differentiate between weekdays and weekends, highlight public holidays and display a coming deadline or delay. In other words, we are going to apply Excel conditional formatting to dates.
If you have some basic knowledge of Excel formulas, then you are most likely familiar with some of date and time functions such as NOW, TODAY, DATE, WEEKDAY, etc. In this tutorial, we are going to take this functionality a step further to conditionally format Excel dates in the way you want.
Excel conditional formatting for dates (built-in rules)
Microsoft Excel provides 10 options to format selected cells based on the current date.
- To apply the formatting, you simply go to the Home tab > Conditional Formatting > Highlight Cell Rules and select A Date Occurring.
- Select one of the date options from the drop-down list in the left-hand part of the window, ranging from last month to next month.
- Finally, choose one of the pre-defined formats or set up your custom format by choosing different options on the Font, Border and Fill tabs. If the Excel standard palette does not suffice, you can always click the More colors… button.
- Click OK and enjoy the result! : )
However, this fast and straightforward way has two significant limitations - 1) it works for selected cells only and 2) the conditional format is always applied based on the current date.
Excel conditional formatting formulas for dates
If you want to highlight cells or entire rows based on a date in another cell, or create rules for greater time intervals (i.e. more than a month from the current date), you will have to create your own conditional formatting rule based on a formula. Below you will find a few examples of my favorite Excel conditional formats for dates.
How to highlight weekends in Excel
Regrettably, Microsoft Excel does not have a built-in calendar similar to Outlook's. Well, let's see how you can create your own automated calendar with quite little effort.
When designing your Excel calendar, you can use the =DATE(year,month,date) function to display the days of the week. Simply enter the year and the month's number somewhere in your spreadsheet and reference those cells in the formula. Of course, you could type the numbers directly in the formula, but this is not a very efficient approach because you would have to adjust the formula for each month.
The screenshot below demonstrates the DATE function in action. I used the formula =DATE($B$2,$B$1,B$4) which is copied across row 5.
Tip. If you want to display only the days of the week like you see in the image above, select the cells with the formula (row 5 in our case), right-click and choose Format Cells…> Number > Custom. From the drop-down list under Type, select either dddd or ddd to show full day names or abbreviated names, respectively.
Your Excel calendar is almost done, and you only need to change the color of weekends. Naturally, you are not going to color the cells manually. We'll have Excel format the weekends automatically by creating a conditional formatting rule based on the WEEKDAY formula.
- You start by selecting your Excel calendar where you want to shade the weekends. In our case, it is the range $B$4:$AE$10. Be sure to start the selection with the 1st date column - Colum B in this example.
- On the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting menu > New Rule.
- Create a new conditional formatting rule based on a formula as explained in the above linked guide.
- In the "Format values where this formula is true" box, enter the following WEEKDAY formula that will determine which cells are Saturdays and Sundays:
=WEEKDAY(B$5,2)>5 - Click the Format… button and set up your custom format by switching between the Font, Border and Fill tabs and playing with different formatting options. When done, click the OK button to preview the rule.
Now, let me briefly explain the WEEKDAY(serial_number,[return_type]) formula so that you can quickly adjust it for your own spreadsheets.
- The
serial_numberparameter represents the date you are trying to find. You enter a reference to your first cell with a date, B$5 in our case. - The
[return_type]parameter determines the week type (square brackets imply it is optional). You enter 2 as the return type for a week starting from Monday (1) through Sunday (7). You can find the full list of available return types here. - Finally, you write >5 to highlight only Saturdays (6) and Sundays (7).
The screenshot below demonstrates the result in Excel 2013 - the weekends are highlighted in the reddish colour.
Tips:
- If you have non-standard weekends in your company, e.g. Fridays and Saturdays, then you would need to tweak the formula so that it starts counting from Sunday (1) and highlight days 6 (Friday) and 7 (Saturday) -
WEEKDAY(B$5,1)>5. - If you are creating a horizontal (landscape) calendar, use a relative column (without $) and absolute row (with $) in a cell reference because you should lock the reference of the row - in the above example it is row 5, so we entered B$5. But if you are designing a calendar in vertical orientation, you should do the opposite, i.e. use an absolute column and relative row, e.g. $B5 as you can see in the screenshot below:
How to highlight holidays in Excel
To improve your Excel calendar further, you can shade public holidays as well. To do that, you will need to list the holidays you want to highlight in the same or some other spreadsheet.
For example, I've added the following holidays in column A ($A$14:$A$17). Of course, not all of them are real public holidays, but they will do for demonstration purposes : )
Again, you open Conditional Formatting > New Rule. In the case of holidays, you are going to use either MATCH or COUNTIF function:
=COUNTIF($A$14:$A$17,B$5)>0=MATCH(B$5,$A$14:$A$17,0)
Note. If you have chosen a different color for holidays, you need to move the public holiday rule to the top of the rules list via Conditional Formatting > Manage Rules…
The following image shows the result in Excel 2013:
Conditionally format a cell when a value is changed to a date
It's not a big problem to conditionally format a cell when a date is added to that cell or any other cell in the same row as long as no other value type is allowed. In this case, you could simply use a formula to highlight non-blanks, as described in Excel conditional formulas for blanks and non-blanks. But what if those cells already have some values, e.g. text, and you want to change the background color when text is changed to a date?
The task may sound a bit intricate, but the solution is very simple.
- First off, you need to determine the format code of your date. Here are just a few examples:
- D1: dd-mmm-yy or d-mmm-yy
- D2: dd-mmm or d-mmm
- D3: mmm-yy
- D4: mm/dd/yy or m/d/yy or m/d/yy h:mm
You can find the complete list of date codes in this article.
- Select a column where you want to change the color of cells or the entire table in case you want to highlight rows.
- And now create a conditional formatting rule using a formula similar to this one:
=CELL("format",$A2)="D1". In the formula, A is the column with dates and D1 is the date format.If your table contains dates in 2 or more formats, then use the OR operator, e.g.
=OR(cell("format", $A2)="D1", cell("format",$A2)="D2", cell("format", $A2)="D3")The screenshot below demonstrates the result of such conditional formatting rule for dates.
How to highlight rows based on a certain date in a certain column
Suppose, you have a large Excel spreadsheet that contains two date columns (B and C). You want to highlight every row that has a certain date, say 13-May-14, in column C.
To apply Excel conditional formatting to a certain date, you need to find its numerical value first. As you probably know, Microsoft Excel stores dates as sequential serial numbers, starting from January 1, 1900. So, 1-Jan-1900 is stored as 1, 2-Jan-1900 is stored as 2… and 13-May-14 as 41772.
To find the date's number, right-click the cell, select Format Cells > Number and choose the General format. Write down the number you see and click Cancel because you do not really want to change the date's format.
That was actually the major part of the work and now you only need to create a conditional formatting rule for the entire table with this very simple formula: =$C2=41772. The formula implies that your table has headers and row 2 is your first row with data.
An alternative way is to use the DATEVALUE formula that converts the date to the number format is which it is stored, e.g. =$C2=DATEVALUE("5/13/2014")
Whichever formula you use, it will have the same effect:
Conditionally format dates in Excel based on the current date
As you probably know Microsoft Excel provides the TODAY() functions for various calculations based on the current date. Here are just a few examples of how you can use it to conditionally format dates in Excel.
Example 1. Highlight dates equal to, greater than or less than today
To conditionally format cells or entire rows based on today's date, you use the TODAY function as follows:
Equal to today: =$B2=TODAY()
Greater than today: =$B2>TODAY()
Less than today: =$B2<TODAY()
The screenshot below demonstrates the above rules in action. Please note, at the moment of writing TODAY was 12-Jun-2014.
Example 2. Conditionally format dates in Excel based on several conditions
In a similar fashion, you can use the TODAY function in combination with other Excel functions to handle more complex scenarios. For example, you may want your Excel conditional formatting date formula to color the Invoice column when the Delivery Date is equal to or greater than today BUT you want the formatting to disappear when you enter the invoice number.
For this task, you would need an additional column with the following formula (where E is your Delivery column and F the Invoice column):
=IF(E2>=TODAY(),IF(F2="", 1, 0), 0)
If the delivery date is greater than or equal to the current date and there is no number in the Invoice column, the formula returns 1, otherwise it's 0.
After that you create a simple conditional formatting rule for the Invoice column with the formula =$G2=1 where G is your additional column. Of course, you will be able to hide this column later.
Example 3. Highlight upcoming dates and delays
Suppose you have a project schedule in Excel that lists tasks, their start dates and durations. What you want is to have the end date for each task calculated automatically. An additional challenge is that the formula should also consider the weekends. For example, if the starting date is 13-Jun-2014 and the number of days of work (Duration) is 2, the ending date should come as 17-Jun-2014, because 14-Jun and 15-Jun are Saturday and Sunday.
To do this, we will use the WORKDAY.INTL(start_date,days,[weekend],[holidays]) function, more precisely =WORKDAY.INTL(B2,C2,1).
In the formula, we enter 1 as the 3rd parameter since it indicates Saturday and Sunday as holidays. You can use another value if your weekends are different, say, Fri and Sat. The full list of the weekend values is available here. Optionally, you can also use the 4th parameter [holidays], which is a set of dates (range of cells) that should be excluded from the working day calendar.
And finally, you may want to highlight rows depending on how far away the deadline is. For example, the conditional formatting rules based on the following 2 formulas highlight upcoming and recent end dates, respectively:
=AND($D2-TODAY()>=0,$D2-TODAY()<=7)- highlight all rows where the End Date (column D) is within the next 7 days. This formula is really handy when it comes to tracking upcoming expiration dates or payments.=AND(TODAY()-$D2>=0,TODAY()-$D2<=7)- highlight all rows where the End Date (column D) is within the last 7 days. You can use this formula to track the latest overdue payments and other delays.
Here are a few more formula examples that can be applied to the table above:
=$D2<TODAY() - highlights all passed dates (i.e. dates less than the current date). Can be used to format expired subscriptions, overdue payments etc.
=$D2>TODAY() - highlights all future dates (i.e. dates greater than the current date). You can use it to highlight upcoming events.
Of course, there can be infinite variations of the above formulas, depending on your particular task. For instance:
=$D2-TODAY()>=6 - highlights dates that occur in 6 or more days.
=$D2=TODAY()-14 - highlights dates occurring exactly 2 weeks ago.
How to highlight dates within a date range
If you have a long list of dates in your worksheet, you may also want to highlight the cells or rows that fall within a certain date range, i.e. highlight all dates that are between two given dates.
You can fulfil this task using the TODAY() function again. You will just have to construct a little bit more elaborate formulas as demonstrated in the examples below.
Formulas to highlight past dates
- More than 30 days ago:
=TODAY()-$A2>30 - From 30 to 15 days ago, inclusive:
=AND(TODAY()-$A2>=15, TODAY()-$A2<=30) - Less than 15 days ago:
=AND(TODAY()-$A2>=1, TODAY()-$A2<15)
The current date and any future dates are not colored.
Formulas to highlight future dates
- Will occur in more than 30 days from now:
=$A2-TODAY()>30 - In 30 to 15 days, inclusive:
=AND($A2-TODAY()>=15, $A2-TODAY()<=30) - In less than 15 days:
=AND($A2-TODAY()>=1, $A2-TODAY()<15)
The current date and any past dates are not colored.
How to shade gaps and time intervals
In this last example, we are going to utilize yet another Excel date function - DATEDIF(start_date, end_date, interval). This function calculates the difference between two dates based on the specified interval. It differs from all other functions we've discussed in this tutorial in the way that it lets you ignore months or years and calculate the difference only between days or months, whichever you choose.
Don't see how this could work for you? Think about it in another way… Suppose you have a list of birthdays of your family members and friends. Would you like to know how many days there are until their next birthday? Moreover, how many days exactly are left until your wedding anniversary and other events you wouldn't want to miss? Easily!
The formula you need is this (where A is your Date column):
=DATEDIF(TODAY(), DATE((YEAR(TODAY())+1), MONTH($A2), DAY($A2)), "yd")
The "yd" interval type at the end of the formula is used to ignore years and calculate the difference between the days only. For the full list of available interval types, look here.
Tip. If you happen to forget or misplace that complex formula, you can use this simple one instead: =365-DATEDIF($A2,TODAY(),"yd"). It produces exactly the same results, just remember to replace 365 with 366 in leap years : )
And now let's create an Excel conditional formatting rule to shade different gaps in different colors. In this case, it makes more sense to utilize Excel Color Scales rather than create a separate rule for each period.
The screenshot below demonstrates the result in Excel - a gradient 3-color scale with tints from green to red through yellow.
"Days Until Next Birthday" Excel Web App
We have created this Excel Web App to show you the above formula in action. Just enter your events in 1st column and change the corresponding dates in the 2nd column to experiment with the result.
If you are curious to know how to create such interactive Excel spreadsheets, check out this article on how to make web-based Excel spreadsheets.
Hopefully, at least one of the Excel conditional formats for dates discussed in this article has proven useful to you. If you are looking for a solution to some different task, you are most welcome to post a comment. Thank you for reading!
1237 comments
My spreadsheet has a last revision date column with a date and a "Date of next review" column next to it with the formula of =S114+365. I would like to have the "Date of next..." to be highlighted if it is within 30-60 days yellow and less than 30 days in the future as red
formula =AND($A2-TODAY()>=30, $A2-TODAY()=1, $A2-TODAY()<30)
isn't cooperating, any help is much appreciated
Hello & thanks in advance for the assist!
I'm using conditional formatting for color coding cells with dates (formatted 01-JAN-17). In column A, I've called out/highlighted in red dates older than 1-JAN-17. In column B, I've called out/highlighted in green dates older than 1-JAN-16.
Now, I would now like to call out/highlight in yellow also in column B, a combination of column A & B to call out dates in column A newer than 01-JAN-17 and in column B where dates are older than 01-JAN-16.
Thanks!
I have a lot bills to pay on a monthly basis. I want to create an excel spreadsheet that reminds me when to submit my payments. For example, my electric bill is due January 24, 2018. I want to make a column with green fill color stating that I am at least 10 days from the due date. When it is 5 days from the due date, I want the fill color to turn yellow.
Can you please help?
Thanks.
Rino
Status Budget Current Phase Target prod
12/12/2017 100% 11/10/2017 12/25/2017
12/10/2017 125% 10/09/2017 12/30/2017
10/10/2017 50% 08/01/2017 08/09/2017
Hi,
Above data is my report example, i need to identify the over budget, one month old status, Passed current phase, Upcoming current phase, passed Target prod and Upcoming Target prod all together in one cell as a result.
Please help me to code in this, i have tried in the below format but the last code i'm getting volatile as a error. I dono how to fix this.
=
IF($C$2>=100%,"Budget Overage.","",
IF($B$2-TODAY()>30,"Status Report More Than 30 Days.","",
IF($D$2=TODAY(),"Upcoming Target Prod Rel Date."
IF($E$2TODAY(),"Passed Target Prod Rel Date.",))))
Hello,
For me to understand the problem better, please send me a small sample workbook with your source data and the result you expect to get to support@ablebits.com.
Please also don't forget to include the link to this comment into your email.
I'll look into your task and try to help.
I'm trying to compare the difference in scheduled and actual times. So a person is scheduled to report to work at 9:00a but the clock in at 9:05. I need a column to show Late and On time when those two times are compared.
Hello,
You can use a formula like this:
=IF(A1>TIME(9,0,0),"Late","On time")
where cell A1 is “9:05”
Hope it will help you.
Hi
I have a number of dates in a spreadsheet of when licenses for forklifts were issued in my company. We refresh the guys every 3 years.
How would i go about making these cells turn red when the 3 years is up from the original issue date?
Each cell contains the date when they completed the test
Hello, Gerard,
For me to understand the problem better, please send me a small sample workbook with your source data and the result you expect to get to support@ablebits.com. Please don't worry if you have confidential information there, we never disclose the data we get from our customers and delete it as soon as the problem is resolved.
Please also don't forget to include the link to this comment into your email.
I'll look into your task and try to help.
Hi,
Similar to the query above, I have a spreadsheet with Names in the rows, organized based on the day they were added to the spreadsheet and dates in the columns. I want the Day 1 column to be automatically highlighted on the day the name is added, and then automatically have the highlighted cells shift left as it becomes Day 2, 4, 7, etc. after that name has been added to the spreadsheet. I then want to create conditional formatting so that once an X has been placed in a cell (marking that that name has been called on that day), the highlight disappears as that task has been completed. Does that make sense?
Hi :)
I have a spread sheet showing columns with start dates, end dates, then data (i.e. deposits required, pre delivery payments required and final invoices required) all running off the start and end dates.
Im trying to high light the cell for deposits required once the start date is a certain number of dates away. Can i achieve this ? i don't want the date cell to be highlighted i want the deposit required cell to be high lighted (or if both can be high lighted that would be even better)
looking forward to your response IL get some serious brownie points if we can do this :)
Hi, I have dates in column C and in column D is the date 29 days from the dates in column C. I want the cells in column D to change color when it is 25 days from the day in column C. Thanks for any help.
Hello,
This is my situation. I've made an employee schedule with conditional formating so that certain things are specific colors. The dates are across the top row. The employee names in the first column on the left. One of the items I formatted is that when I cancel an employee's shift I have formatted the cells to highlight red when I type a "C" in them. I also want the date of the cancel or "C" that was entered into the schedule to automatically appear in the column on the far right. And since an employee could potentially be cancelled more than one time per month I need only the most recent date to appear in the column on the right. I also want the information from the column on the right to carry over to the next month which is the next sheet in the same workbook. I have not been able to figure out how to write a formula to solve this issue. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Samantha
If the date in H7 is before the date in G7, I want the font color to be green. If the date in H7 is after the date in G7, I want the font color to be red. How do I do that?
Hello, Nicholas,
you need to use the most basic formulas that will compare dates in conditional formatting, like the one below:this article to learn more about conditional formatting.
=H7
Hello,
I wanted to automatically have the date and time in column B generate whenever an entry was made in the corresponding row of column A. I was able to accomplish that, but now the tricky part is getting cells A through D for that row to change yellow if the date/time generated in B is between the the current date at 6am and 630pm, and then change blue if the date in B is between the current business date and 5:59am on the next day. I was able to get the blue shade condition to work, but not the yellow for the morning entries. Would you be able to assist with a formula?
Hi is there a way I can highlight dates in a column that cannot exceed another date in another column? For example, I have a spreadsheet where one column consists of dates where patients received their services and another column expressing their discharge date. I want to look for any discrepancies where the service dates exceed the discharge date.
Thank you.
Hi, Kelly,
you need to create a simple conditionally formatted rule where one date (let's say, in A1) is bigger than the other (for example, A1>A2).
Please take a look at this point of the article to learn the principle. You can adjust the formula, simply change "TODAY()" to the cell that contains other date for comparison.
Hope this helps!
Hi, I have created a spreadsheet that contains a column with a list of review dates for patients. Can you help me find the best formula to use so that the dates that are overdue will show in red, the dates that are due within two weeks will show in yellow and the dates that are more than 2 weeks away will show as green. There is another column next to this one that shows wether a patient has an appointment booked (it has the appointment date in it), is there a formula I could use to ensure that the dates in this column are ahead of the actual review date?
Thanks very much
Hi, Leigh,
it's very difficult to come up with any particular formula since we don't know how your data is stored.
Please take a closer look at the "Example 3. Highlight upcoming dates and delays" part of the article above and you'll see the formulas that may be of great help.
Otherwise please send us a small workbook with your sample data to support@ablebits.com. I kindly ask you to shorten the table to 10-20 rows.
Our technical specialist will take a look at your task and try to help.
I have a list of 20 names (A2 thru A21) who are participating in a 6 week program. Column C is adm/week 1. Column D is week 2(7days from date in Column C). Column E is week 3 (7days from date in Column D), and so on. The date of each of the 6 weeks is populated in subsequent columns/rows using the formula =DATE(YEAR(C3), MONTH(C3), DAY(C3)+7). I am trying to figure out how use a formula so all participants in week 1 will have a yellow cell(column C), week 2 a light red cell(column D), week 3 a light green cell, week 4 a light purple cell, week 5 a light blue cell, and week 6 a light tan cell. Can you help me?
Hello,
Can you please help me to get appropriate excel formula for the following case?
I have the work sheet that contain different information and I wanted to get the warning when specfic name is incerted & the dead line is passed.
eg. Column A= the cell where the date is recorded
Column B= The list of names
Column C= Dead line dates
So, I need to get the alarm (red color) when the two conditions are fulffliled. i.e The name is inserted among the list of d/t names and the deadline is passed.
Thank you in advance.
kindly advise to get the formula for expiration after 30 days and after 5 days using conditional formatting.
Ex.
Date created: Sept 1 then it will expire after 30days or it will expire within 5 days.
how can I formulate this one: example
Column 1 = August 01, 2017 10:08 and
column 2 = August 01, 2017 16:00
Time should not be exceeded to 4 hours, if its exceeded comment should be delayed, if not exceeded its not delayed
Thank you
In your first example of using the built-in date conditional formatting I had already done this, but I would like to have it format the entire row instead of just the cell. I have three conditions set up.
1. Is anything "This month"
2. Is anything "Next month:
3. Is anything before today.
1 overrides 3. My formatting works well, but I wish this set up would highlight the entire row based on these conditions as opposed to just the cell. Anything further than the next month will not need to be highlighted, but this will be an ongoing spreadsheet with changing dates as information is updated.
Hello, Adam,
to format the entire row you need to open Conditional Formatting Rule Manager (Home tab > Conditional Formatting > Manage Rules), select the rule and enter the whole row to the Apply to field (e.g. B:B, or A1:C1 supposing you have 3 columns).
If you don't want the other rules to be applied when the first condition is met, make sure to select the Stop If True check box next to those rules in the same Conditional Formatting Rule Manager.
Hope this helps.
This works for columns, but not rows. If I go to manage rules and select a bunch of rows (say 2-11) it still only highlights the cell within that date range, not the entire row. I have columns A-M and the only column where the date range matters to me is column I. My conditional formatting works to highlight dates in a range in that column, but I would like it to do something like highlight all of row 3 if the date in column I falls in my range, instead of just cell I3.
Thanks for your help.
If at all possible I would love to send in a snapshot of my spreadsheet so that you may easily identify my issue and help to resolve in a timely manner. Could you please provide me with a forwarding email address.
Thanks In advance,
Lemar Harper
(915)929-4934