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!
1238 comments
Hi Svetlana,
I have a spreadsheet with date entry in range column (B10:B54) and I want that whenever Christmas date (24 Dec) and New year Date (31 Dec) comes irrespective of the year, both the date cells should get highlight.
Thanks in advance
Hi Navneet,
Try creating a rule for cells B10:B54 with this formula:
=AND(MONTH($B10)=12, OR(DAY($B10)=24, DAY($B10)=31))
You are genius. It worked. Thanks a lot.
I have task list with start and end dates. I'm trying to get Excel to be able to color fill the cells to the right of the dates based on the duration of the tasks.
For example, Task 1 starts 3/16/15 and ends 4/3/15. The columns to the right are the Fridays of each week (3/20, 3/27 etc). For task 1, how can I get Excel to color fill the cells for 3/20, 3/27 and 4/3 and then stop.
I tried Excel bar chart, but that didn't produce the intended results and requires a lot of reformatting. Thanks for any help you can provide.
Hi Tom,
You can do this by creating a rule based on the following formula:
=AND(C2>=$A2, C2<=$B2)
It assumes that row 2 is your first row with data, column A is the start date, B is the end date, and C is the left-most column with Fridays.
You need to apply this rule to all "Fridays columns", not including the column headers.
Hi! Okay so I've been given a matrix to complete and I AM STUCKED BECAUSE IM NEW WITH EXCEL.
So, What i have is a planned date (D5), Duration (G5) and End Date (H5) and what i need is the Reviewed date which is on (J5) Is there formula if i want the values at J5-J100 containing the date to turn red when it is completed but over due
And green is completed on time.
Hi Estelle,
If my understanding is correct, an item is considered over due if the Reviewed date (J5) is greater than End Date (H5). And you want to highlight only those cells that have a Reviewed date set (empty cells in column J are not highlighted).
If so, then all you need is create a rule for cells J5-J100 with the following formula:
=AND($J5<>"", $J5>$H5)
I have a spreadsheet with titles from A1:G1, and data from A2:G283
In column G i have drop downs with Yes or No options.
I would like a conditional format which will highlight the rows (e.g from a2:g2) in red which have "no" in the G cell at the end of that row, and Green if "yes".
What can I use for this?
Thanks!
Hi Tomocon,
Simply select all the rows you want to highlight (without the titles) and create 2 rules with the following formulas:
Red: =G2="no"
Green: =G2="yes"
Thanks Svetlana!
So simple! I feel stupid!
I have another one, I'm drawing a blank on how to do!
I have a basic attendance sheet, for a weekly meeting.
I would like to highlight a row of people who have not been present for 4 or more consecutive weeks.
So highlight B4:H4 if "0" shows 4 or more consecutive times in C4:G4
Thanks ! :)
Hi Svetlana,
This seems to only highlight the first cell of the row. not the whole row.
There seems to be a problem with cell references. Try this formula:
=COUNTIF($C4:$G4, 0)>=4
And make sure the rules applies to B4:H4 (you can actually include more than one row if needed).
The row will be highlighted in there are 4 or more zeros in C4:G4, in any cells, don't know how to limit it to consecutive cells only :(
Thanks Svetlana for the quick reply!
In relation to my first question, the formula you suggested, will only highlight the first cell in the selected row.
even though i have selected the whole row and made the conditional format on this?
Any ideas on why?
Thanks Tom
Hi Tom,
Oops, my bad. I mentioned incorrect cell references in my formulas but forgot to fix them. Sorry!
In the formulas, please fix the column using the absolute reference (with the $ sign):
Red: =$G2="no"
Green: =$G2="yes"
Thanks Svetlana!
No worries at all! ... if you ever figure out the consecutive number issue please email me! thanks!
Hi Svetlana, Back again!
I have a sheet, which has a data validation in Column I.
I want to hide a row, If i select "Fully Sent" in this validation on that row.
Any VBA codes i have found have hidden the entire range when I select "Fully Sent" in one row. I need this to only hide the row where "Fully Sent" is selected.
Any ideas?
Data validation in Column I
Rows 4:92
Other validation options "complete" "Pending"
Thanks :)
What would be a formula for the following example. I keep a spreadsheet with our data tapes that go offsite. After two weeks they expire and I need to request them back. The tape number is in column A, while the expiration date is in column D. I need to check column D and if it is equal to today's date, I need the tape number in column A to be copied to another worksheet. I have about 15 tabs I need to check every morning and thought this could be automated somehow. Thanks.
Hello...I am having problems with formulas in columns. I tried conditional formatting and it isn't helping.
I need a column to calculate the dates from 1 year forward and color coordinated to go from green to yellow to red the closer it gets to the deadline of 30 days and automatically update when I enter a date in the column to track the deadline dates...
I want to create a conditional format that highlights any time that is less that 7:00:00 AM using AM/PM time. Any advice you can give me would be appreciated.
oops. I just added my email. sorry
Hi Sandra,
No problem :) Assuming that your date is in column C, and row 2 is your first row with data, select all the rows you want to highlight (without the column headers!) and create a rule with the following formula:
=$C2<DATEVALUE("6/30/2015")
Hi, This should be simple enough but I'm a beginner. Can you please tell me how to highlight rows if the date in column 3 is any date before 6/30/2015. Thank you! Non-Employee Info 2/23/2015 6/30/2015 503441
Non-Employee Info 3/1/2015 6/30/2015 512294
Non-Employee Info 1/1/2015 3/5/2015 512237
Hi how about instead of calculating the due date based on date, can you give an example based on time? like if the due time is 8:00?
i m trying to calculate the difference between dates
1st cell = 2015 February 9 01:07:13 UTC+5:30
2nd cell = 2015 February 9 01:07:47 UTC+5:30
2ND - 1ST
pls can someone help me regarding that
hi pls help me to highlight or to put icon to column N where i can identify data verified within TAT based on Column K (TAT date)..i only can put to a single cell how to do for entire column...bcos tat date is not same...tq pls advice me
column K Column N
tat date verified date
22/01/2015 23/01/2015
23/01/2015 21/01/2015
23/01/2015 22/01/2015
How to find total working day in a month including Saturday
exp:may-2015, PH- 1day sunday 5 dyas, net working days 24 dys
my question is first cell old date, second cell today date and third cell may be work completed or work in progress or work pending. but my condition, if third cell value is work in pending that time i need to subtract from second cell to first cell i need how many days work pending
please help me for my daily activity works.
thanking you,
regarding
ranjith
hi ...
can i vary content of entire column using universal formula based on contents of another column ???
waiting for reply
yes
PLEASE HELP ME IN THIS ISSUE
01-07-2013 A1
01-10-2013 A2
14-12-2013 A3
01-10-2014 A4
17-10-2014 A5
01-03-2015 A6
Now I want to fill like this automatically below cells D4 and E4:
D4 E4
01-07-2013 31-07-2013
01-08-2013 31-08-2013
01-09-2013 30-09-2013
01-10-2013 31-10-2013
01-11-2013 30-11-2013
01-12-2013 13-12-2013
14-12-2013 31-12-2013
01-01-2014 31-01-2014
01-02-2014 28-02-2014
01-03-2014 31-03-2014
01-04-2014 30-04-2014
01-05-2014 31-05-2014
01-06-2014 30-06-2014
01-07-2014 31-07-2014
01-08-2014 31-08-2014
01-09-2014 30-09-2014
01-10-2014 16-10-2013
17-10-2013 31-10-2013
01-11-2014 30-11-2014
01-12-2014 31-12-2014
01-01-2015 31-01-2015
01-02-2015 28-02-2015
01-03-2015 31-03-2015
HI, FRIENDS I AM SUBMITTING MY PROBLEM LIKE THIS.
DATE PAY Rs.
A1: 13-07-2014 15000
A2: 17-10-2014 17000
A3: 01-12-2014 19000
ABOVE SERIES IS TO MAKE SALARY BILLS IN FRACTION OF A MONTH AND
Now I want to fill like this automatically below cells D4 and E4:
D4 CELL E4 CELL PAY Rs.
13-07-2014 31-07-2014 15000
01-08-2014 31-08-2014 15000
01-09-2014 30-09-2014 15000
01-10-2014 16-10-2014 7742 ( FOR 16 DAYS @15000 P/M)
17-10-2014 31-10-2014 8226 ( FOR 15 DAYS @17000 P/M)
01-11-2014 30-11-2014 17000
01-12-2014 31-12-2014 19000
D4 IS ALWAYS FIRST OF THE MONTH UNTIL FRACTION COMES AND E4 IS ALWAYS END OF THE
I NEED HELP!!! Trying to get cells to fill different colors based on date in cell for yearly (annual)certification.
Example....cell E3 date is 1-JAN-15,
**no action needed (green fill)1-JAN-15 to 1-OCT-15
**must complete training in next 90 days(yellow fill)1-OCT-15 to 31-DEC-15
**expired(red fill) 1-JAN-16 or after
So if they completed cert on 1 APR 14...the cell should be yellow right now bc it is due to expire in the next 90 days.
If they completed cert on 1 FEB 14 cell should be red bc it is past 1 yr.
If they completed cert on 1 DEC 14 cell should be green bc they have 9months before the 90day window.
Any help is GREATLY appreciated!!!
Can some on please help me with this. thanks in advance.
some cells in Column C have dates. I want to put a conditional format formula which will highlight the same line cell number in column E if there is any date in Column C.
for example
C2 has a date, then E2 becomes yellow
C3 doesn't have date, E3 remain clear
C4 has a date, then E2 becomes yellow
and so forth
hello! so I have a column were the names of certain permits are, and another for the date it was issued and another for the date of expiry. I want to have my cells with the names turn orange when there's only 2 months before it expires and green if it is still far from expiring, red when it has already expired. Thank you!!!
Hello Lyka,
Select your column with the names and create 3 conditional formatting rules using the following formulas:
Red:
=AND(C2<>"",$C2
I am trying to highlight the days between start date and end date for a given task. tried conditional formatting does not work.
I tried to just high light holidays. in one worksheet Match works, the same formula does not work else where strange.
Can someone help in excel, how to go about this.
Hello Raj,
It's difficult to advise anything without seeing your data. If you can post your sample workbook on our forums and describe what data you want to highlight, our support team will try to help.