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
hi. i have to get a "Icon Set" for the below given information.
there is 3 cells with date which is "PO Issued Date", "PO Delivery Date" & "Delivered Date".
1. i need green color on "Delivered Date" if the Date is entered.
2. i need yellow color if the date is not exceed on "PO Delivery Date"
3. i need Red Color if the "Delivered date" is not filled when the date exceed the "PO Delivery Date".
PO Issued Date PO Delivery Date Delivered Date
7/20/2019 7/26/2019
I cannot perfect R/A/G conditional formatting when using 2 dates. A deadline date and an actual date of completion.
Green if date of completion is on or before deadline date
Amber if date of completion is blank up until deadline date
Red if deadline date passes or date of completion is after deadline date
Any tips?
=TIME(HOUR(M18),MINUTE(M18)+5,SECOND(0)) I am using this formula to show the incremental time of 5 minutes in each column(left to right)to have a color through conditional formatting...till the time slot given for 24 hours(split in five minutes each)its coming perfectly. however when the calculation go beyond 24 hours it is not functioning properly. hence pl advice how add days to this formula
I have two columns. The first contains dates. The second contains $ value. I choose a cell in the worksheet and apply formulae. =if(first cell: last cell="today()",(first cell: last cell="$value). What I am seeking to do is apply the $ value that is opposite the date for today().
Hey, I have a table with "employee name" column and "date of hiring" and I should aplly a conditional format for employees whose last name is "DEDU" and were hired this year.
Hello,
I have a column with "Due Dates" and another column with "Completed date". I want to color format the first column to turn green if the date in the "Completed date" column is equal or lower that the due date value. And to be orange if it is greater (which will mean that it was completed but past its due date).
Also, I don't want any color if some cells in the column of "Completed date" are still blank.
Thanks.
Hello,
I'm maintaining an attendance table in the following format.
01 Wed IN 01 Wed OUT
08:27 17:16
08:36 14:31
08:38 17:07
08:32 17:05
08:47 17:05
08:31 17:04
08:16 17:13
08:31 17:13
08:29 17:05
08:40 17:06
08:32 17:02
08:52 17:05
08:36 17:08
08:30 18:37
I want to apply conditional formatting for "IN" column and "OUT" column. If IN time > 8:45, the font in that cell should be RED. If OUT time < 17:00, the font in that cell should be RED.
The data in IN and OUT columns is a result of LEFT(cell, 5) and RIGHT(cell,5) from another column that records every IN and OUT entry of the staff.
I have tried conditional formatting options but I'm obviously doing something wrong. Tried formatting the cells as Time, Custom, etc.
Appreciate your help.
Thanks.
Rupali
Is there a formula that puts the current date only when THAT ROW is edited? I’m trying to create a running log for pipe load-outs and am trying to make it to where the date cell puts in the date that data was entered into that row only and will not change when I add to it on a later date.
First of all I would like to thank you on your tutorials you are absolutely great..I have a question regarding conditional formating with dates,I work with a large number of package delivery and to track all of it I use this type of formula:
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()-$A2=1, TODAY()-$A2<15)
just with less days,I was wondering could you use a WORKDAY function so that it counts in the formulas above just the working days not weekends as my schedules are regarding only working days.Would that work?Thank you and keep up the good work :)
I need a formula A with the Dispatch date mentioned and B also date of Invoice Date if A column date is less than old 2 days then highlight both cells if B is mentioned date in cell then highlight should be disable.
Sample
Dispatch Date Invoice Date
17-04-19 no Highlight
13-04-19 15-04-19
09-04-19 10-04-19
15-04-19 Highlight
no Highlight
26-03-19 Highlight
15-04-19 Highlight
16-04-19 no Highlight
14-04-19 Highlight
hello
I am trying to calculate for bigger spread sheet some bits
basically in one cell (D2) i have "Office 365 Business Premium+Enterprise Mobility + Security E3" and in other column G2 i am trying to put "IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("Premium",D2)),1,0)", in next one-H2 "=IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("Mobility",D2)),1,0) etc and It is all coming up to "0" what is wrong
can I have some advice please
I am trying to built a database of clients which every 90 days I need to update their record and I am wanting the update column to color the cell a color when the date is 90 days from the last adjustment. For example a clients new records was built 02/01/2017, the record was last updated 02/28/2018 and now I am updating the record on 04/08/2019. The next time I would need to update the record is when my today() is July 8 or after 90 days and not before then. I just have one column that holds a date and and each time I update the record it will reset to conditional formatting.
When you describe how to highlight dates within a date range, you posted:
Less than 15 days ago: =AND(TODAY()-$A2>=1, TODAY()-$A2<15)
However, I could not get that to work for me when I tried it for between 130 and 365. After some angst I used =IF instead of to =AND, and then it worked fine. I am curious to know why that is.
I am trying to do the following:
Header Row 12/1/2018 1/1/2019 2/1/2019
Columns
Start Finish
12/1/2018 1/1/2019
12/1/2018 1/1/2019
I am trying to compare the dates in the Column "Start" and "Finish" to the header rows and conditionally format the color based on whether the date is within range or not.
Is this possible with Excel?
Hi there
I need help with a future date formula. I need a policy to expire every 3 years (2019-2022), rather than annually. I need this to show as GREEN when in date, YELLOW a month before its due to expire, and RED once this has expired. Which formula do I use to cover these formatting? I've tried it the normal way but used previous dates (2015-2019) to get the desired results, but unsure how to get this to work for the desired current/future dates 2019-2022. Whenever I apply the same formula/formatting my policy which is in date, stays white.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Kind regards
Hi,
I have been trying to figure out the necessary formula for conditional formatting for the past few weeks and have been unable to locate it.
I am working on fixing the conditional formatting for "Audit Due Date Tracking". In boxes C & D, there is a formula set up to show 2 weeks (14 days) from C="Sent" and D="Due(2 weeks)". What is needed is conditional formatting to display "PINK" in the applicable rows before the 2 weeks are up and is at 12 days to indicate that an email needs to be sent to the recipient. Next, conditional formatting for E="Received Date" needs to be set up so that "YELLOW" shades the rows that are past the 14 days; indicating that they are all past due.
Any help someone can offer is greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance! =)
Hello, I want to run a program in my excel file. Which contains three columns and 18000 rows. To, simplify my data i want to select the vales like 0,0.5,1,1.5 etc. and against these values i want to select the whole row. how can i do this by using one simple formula in EXCEL.
I have created a spreadsheet tracking multiple tasks that are all carrying a date. Many of the cells dates a re defined formulas to define the next task day being x number days. Current conditional formatting is red for past todays date, green for within the next 2 weeks, and just plain for past the 2 weeks. How can I highlight and keep the past date in a cell of the completed task and still maintain the links driving the future dates. Essentially want to show the task cell in yellow as completed but keep the date intact. Today because it shows in the past it is red and would override the color if I just changed it to yellow. I can type in complete in the cell and change it, but hen the future days error out of course due to the existing formulas driving the future dates Thoughts?
Thanks...assuming it makes sense.
Hi -
I am trying to format a cell that if the date in the cell is after todays date and after cell A17, it should highlight. Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!
were you able to figure this out? I am looking to do the same thing.
Thank you!
i want create Excell sheet For Apartment Rent Details
Example: We Have 6 Apartment.each apartment Payment in 3cheques
i want know apartent1,2,3... Payment details.next payment when will due