How to conditionally format dates and time in Excel with formulas and inbuilt rules

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.

  1. To apply the formatting, you simply go to the Home tab > Conditional Formatting > Highlight Cell Rules and select A Date Occurring.
    Excel conditional formatting built-in rules for dates
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
    Choose one of the pre-defined formats or set up your custom format.
  4. Click OK and enjoy the result! : )
    Highlight cells in Excel with dates occurring in the last 7 days.

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.
Use Excel DATE function to display the days of the week.

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.

  1. 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.
  2. On the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting menu > New Rule.
  3. Create a new conditional formatting rule based on a formula as explained in the above linked guide.
  4. 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
  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.
    Excel conditional formatting rule with the WEEKDAY formula to highlight weekends.

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_number parameter 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.
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:

Excel conditional formatting formula to highlight weekends in a vertical orientation calendar.

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 : )
Add list of public holidays to a worksheet.

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:
Conditional formatting formula to highlight holidays in Excel.

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.

  1. 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.

  2. Select a column where you want to change the color of cells or the entire table in case you want to highlight rows.
  3. 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.
    A row is highlighted when text in column C is changed to a date.

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.
Find the numerical value of a date.

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:
Highlight every row based on a certain date in a certain column.

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.
Excel formulas to highlight dates equal to, greater than or less than the current date.

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.
Excel conditional formatting rule to highlight blank cells in the Invoice column when the Delivery Date is equal to or greater than today.

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).
The WORKDAY.INTL formula calculates the End Date for each task taking into account the weekends.

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.

Excel conditional formatting rules to highlight upcoming dates and 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 past dates in a certain date range

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.
Formulas to highlight future dates in a given date range

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.
The 3-color scale shades cells in different colors based on how many days are left until the event.

"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!

Table of contents

1237 comments

  1. Hi Alexander,

    Thanks so much for taking the time to reply to comments and provide such a comprehensive article.

    I am trying to use formulas to highlight past dates

    More than 10 days ago: =TODAY()-$A2>10
    From 4 to 9 days ago, inclusive: =AND(TODAY()-$A2>=4, TODAY()-$A2=0, TODAY()-$A2<3)

    These are all just altered based on the examples in the article, however I need them to apply to all the cells in column J (excluding title column)

    I have tried a few different things but none of them seem to work.

    Can you please help me?

    • Sorry! Typo above ^^

      This is what I meant to do:

      red - More than 10 days ago: =TODAY()-$A2>10
      yellow - From 4 to 9 days ago, inclusive: =AND(TODAY()-$A2>=4, TODAY()-$A2=0, TODAY()-$A2<3)

      Need to apply these formulas to column J, any help greatly appreciated!

      • From 4 to 9 days ago, inclusive: =AND(TODAY()-$A2>=4, TODAY()-$A2=1, TODAY()-$A2<3)

        • Sorry this keeps changing my comment.

  2. Hi, can you please help me?
    I need to format a column in excel. I have dates in columns B and C. I need that if the date in column B is smaller than in column C, the given cell (in column C) will be colored green. Otherwise, there will be no discoloration. I need to apply this to all rows from column C.
    for ex.:
    B C
    10.7.2024 12.7.2024 (12.7.2024 will be green)
    20.7.2024 12.7.2024 (12.7.2024 will be normal)

    thank you

  3. Could anyone have an idea how to create Weekly Summary Manhours Report based on the DIR/IND from the listed Daily Manhours.

    • Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.

  4. I want to know, if we make a database of employees number of expereince, how can the data is updated with each passing year i.e. how can the number of expereince can be increased with each passing year?

    • Hi! I can't know how your data will change. If you have a specific question about the operation of a function or formula, I will try to answer it.

  5. Hi..
    I need to know how can I extract the date of a value if it changed. (Ex: if I fill in A2:A10 some values in 10-6-2024, in A2=55, after 7 days I changed to 66 but I keep the other values without any changes. I need a formula to know only the cells that have changed after the above dat.
    Thanks

  6. Hi,

    Sorry I have a second part of my question.

    I've created a Visual Basic Module, that sends an email reminder to me 1 week before check-in date (A1).
    When I 'run' the module from Visual Basic, it works (i.e. sends me an email) - but how/where/what do I insert (formula wise) and where, to tell the spreadsheet to run the module when it gets to 7 days out from the check-in date?

    • Hi! You cannot run a macro at a specific time using an Excel formula.You can do this with another macro that will check the cell value and run your macro.

  7. Hi,
    I'm trying to do conditional formating using a check-in date (A1) and check-out date (A2)?

    I'd like 3 conditions:
    Before check in (both A1 & A2 are yellow)
    Once Check in date is today or past, (both A1 & A2 are green) - to indicate a guest has checked in
    once the check out date has passed (both A1 & A2 are red) - to indicate a guest has checked out
    Thank you

  8. Hi, can you help me to solve this. im working on this problem for a couple of days and yet i just cant resolve this. please guide

    on conditional formatting
    if sheet1.a1 date is equal to sheet2.a1 date and sheet2.b1 text = "conflict" then sheet1.a1 row change its color

      • thanks a lot, do you also have a solution on this problem.
        two different set of dates to determine whether there's a conflict on set schedules
        example:
        set 1, from june 1, 2024 - june 5, 2024 - meeting with the board
        set 2, from june 4, 2024 - june 7, 2024 - meeting with higher ups

        do you know how to calculate that june 4 & 5 have a conflict on set 2 schedule.

        thanks in advance, i still in float on this problem

        • Hi! Excel can't compare dates written as text. Also, it's best to use special programs to work with schedules, not Excel, which isn't designed for this purpose.

  9. Hi! First want to say this article has helped me so much in a number of reports I use so thank you for that! Secondly, I'm having trouble figuring out a conditional formatting formula for the following criteria.

    I want to highlight 1 cell based on if a group of other cells has a date that is less than or equal to Today. I've tried a number of formulas and can't seem to figure it out.
    Here's an example to better explain:

    B1 (Would some type of text)
    B2:B5 (These would have various dates)

    I want to highlight B1 if any cell from B2:B5 have a date equal to Today or Prior to Today.
    Do you know any formula or formulas that would work?

  10. Hi, I would like 8 cells to change their value depending on which week we are in. So every Monday when we open our sheet to see status of our job tasks, it is automatically changed to the current week. I have a separate sheet with an overview of weeks 13-30 and with the data as well.
    Is it possible to make a rule or though VBA to make the cells update automatically?

  11. For example, Data A has a date, and Data B is the date when it is 3 days before Data A. I'd like to set a condition for Data B to become green when it is 1-5 days prior to Data A, red if it exceeds 1 day or more, and orange if it is the exact date.

  12. I am trying to format cells in collum D to change a red/bold if due date is within 15 days and if cells in collum C are blank- C will be blank or a "yes" would rather not have to say "no" as well... but if blank is not an option I would input a No..

    =IF($D2-TODAY()>=1, $D2-TODAY()<15,IF(C2="no", 0)

    Any help would be greatly appreciated

    Holly

    • Hi! Conditional formatting changes the format of a cell, but it does not allow you to change a value in the cell. See the article above for how to change the color based on the date. Read the section above carefully: How to highlight dates within a date range. Use the IF formula in cell C2 if you also want to change the value of cell C2 by a condition. This condition is completely unclear, so I can't suggest a formula.

      • Sorry, very new here.... I was hoping for clarification, are you unable to put "AND" and "IF" into one conditional formatting? Maybe I am not explaining correctly. my spreadsheet is to monitor and ensure an appointment is not missed for scheduling. Next appointment date (collum D) and collum C is the scheduling status.

        $D2 if in less than 15 days from the date and appointment remains unscheduled I want to make this bold or change the color.

        thank you so much for your help!!
        Holly

  13. I have the following:

    Date 1, Cell A1 thru A20 dates are entered manually
    Date 2, Cell B1 thru B20 is automatically calculated out to 6 months from date in A1: =IF(A1="","",(A1+182))

    I want to set up conditional formatting so the cells in in column B will turn amber at 30 days before the date indicated in and turn red after the date.

    Cell A Dates Cell B Dates
    10/18/23 4/17/24
    1/11/24 7/11/24

    I tried using the TODAY function, but it didn't work consistently.
    thanks

    • Hi! Please re-check the article above since it covers your task. If you want to compare data to a specific date, rather than to the current date, use a reference to a cell with that date instead of using the TODAY function.
      For example:

      =A1-$D$1<30

      If you are comparing column B to the current date, see the example formulas in the article above.

      Create a separate conditional formatting rule for each colour.

  14. Hi,
    Please assist me to get this answered.
    I have searched a lot with no results.
    I have a column that has dates formulated as 1/15/2016. I am asked to format the cells as Orange if that date falls on a Saturday or Sunday, and if it falls on Monday, to return as "1". How can I do that?
    I changed the date format to be (Friday, January 15, 2016), but then I do not know where to go?

    • Hi! You can change the color of a cell depending on the day of the week using a conditional formatting formula. Use the WEEKDAY formula to do this. For example:

      =WEEKDAY(A1,2)>5

      However, either manually or using a VBA macro, you can change the date value to "1". Conditional formatting only changes the format, it does not change the value.

  15. Hi
    I am wanting to highlight times , that are not :00 , :15, :30, :45 in column C , using conditional formatting only as its an import from another sheet,
    i tried using unique but i am a little lost to making this work correctly
    eg
    Column A B C
    Wednesday 06:00 15:31
    Thursday 06:00 15:30
    Friday 06:00 15:47
    Saturday 00:00 00:00
    Sunday
    Monday 06:00 14:08
    Tuesday 06:00 15:30

    • Hi! Use the MINUTE function to get the minutes from the time. To determine that the minutes are a multiple of 15, use the MOD function. In this case, the remainder of the division by 15 is 0. Create a conditional formatting formula in which the minutes are not a multiple of 15 and the remainder of the division by 15 is not 0.

      =MOD(MINUTE(C1),15)<>0

      • thank you this worked perfectly

  16. Hello. I am working on a five-shift rotation calendar. The calendar covers the whole year. The calendar fills TODAY 's date cell with a chosen color. That works well.
    I would also like to fill five cells in the column directly below the date in a different color, to help the Shifts more easily identify who is on duty that day.
    I started trying to build a formula where if TODAY was anywhere in the column above, then these cells would highlight. But I can't seem to build a formula that will work.
    I wish I could post a Snagit (screenshot) of what I'm trying to accomplish.
    For example below, if today's date were 2, I would want the cells to the right of the shifts, below 2, to highlight.

    Date Columns
    2 3 4 5 6 7 8....
    etc...
    etc...
    Shift A NNNN
    Shift B DDD
    Shift C TTTT
    Shift D DDDD
    Shift E NNN

    • Well, the columns I tried to manually build in my question didn't work out using spaces, and I can't edit it. The date columns should be shifted to right , as well as how D (day shift), N (night shift), and T (training) should line up.

  17. Now i need a help hope you would help me in our office we have a daily tracker in that we have 12 agents and works in 24/7 shifts we work on incident tickets as soon as the ticket arrives we have enter the ticket number in that sheet and change the color of the cell manually according to the time the ticket arrived for eg. if ticket came in between 8am to 9 am it will be green if it is between 9 am to 10 am then red if it is between 10 am to 11 am then purple so on so instead of changing the color manually i need a formula or a steps so based on current time when the data entered into a cell the color should change please suggest

    • Hi! The above article contains all the information you need, so I hope you will read it. Use the TIME function to set the time. Here is an example of a conditional formatting formula for your question:

      =AND(A1>=TIME(9,0,0),A1<TIME(10,0,0))

      Create a separate conditional formatting rule for each time interval.

  18. Hi,

    I have a task to use conditional format for a field of date that did not occur yet. For example, I have a date in row J6 of 01/02/2024 and date in row K6 is 01/02/2027 (3 years later). My task is to make the row K6 to highlight automatically, lets say in red, when it has 30 days left until it reaches set date of 01/02/2027. Can you please advice how I can do this? I'm very new here...
    Thank you very much!

    • Hi! Have you tried the methods described in this blog post? All the necessary information is in the article above. For example: K6-30<=TODAY()

  19. Hello-How would I add conditional formating using an excel calendar template to highlight a Friday that is paydate if comparing to another worksheet that lists the pay dates

    • Your title - "How to conditionally format dates and time in Excel" - is misleading. You have no examples dealing with formatting time values, just dates. I was looking for a simple way to format times in cells if they are between certain times of the day, say 8:00 AM & 5:00 PM. I can get it to work by storing these two values in some cells and then comparing against these but was looking for a way to conditionally format w/o having to store the two values in cells.

      • actually the other way...5:00 PM & 8:00 AM.

      • Hi! Since the date and time in Excel are stored as numbers, you can get the time using mathematical functions. For example, using the INT function.

        A1-INT(A1)

        For conditional time formatting, you can use a formula like this:

        =(A1-INT(A1)) > TIME(14,0,0)

  20. I've been tasked to do a Staff report where employees training are highlighted with traffic lights. I have to see Green for first 9 months after training course, Amber for between 3 months and Due Date, and Red for Past the Due Date. How would I write these. It has to apply to 23 cells, but not all rows are populated due to training requirements. Not all staff need all courses.

    • Hi! For each condition, create a separate conditional formatting rule as described in the article above. I cannot recommend these 3 formulas to you as I do not have your data. If something is still unclear, please feel free to ask.

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