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
SOLVED IT!! This formula works! Posting in case someone else needs it. :-)
=AND($E2<DATEVALUE("2/7/2015"), $F2<DATEVALUE("2/7/2015"))
Second formula: =AND($E2>DATEVALUE("2/7/2015"), $F2>DATEVALUE("2/7/2015"))
It just keeps combinging my formulas....trying two separate comments.
First formula: =AND(42041<$E2, 42041<$F2)
Not sure what happened with my first comment but it combined my formulas together. The first one I tried was: =AND(42041<$E2, 42041DATEVALUE("2/7/2015"), $F2>DATEVALUE("2/7/2015"))
I need help with the following issue. I have a spreadsheet with two columns that contain dates and times in this format: 02/06/2015 12:00AM. All of the cells in column E have values but some of the cells in column F are blank. What I need is for columns A-D to be conditionally formatted when the value of column E AND column F occur before 2/6/2015. I have tried these formulas and they both work on some rows but not on all rows and I cannot figure out why.
First formula I tried: =AND(42041<$E2, 42041DATEVALUE("2/7/2015"), $F2>DATEVALUE("2/7/2015"))
Both of the above formulas will conditionally format some rows correctly but they both also conditionally format some rows incorrectly and I cannot figure out why Excel can calculate the formula correctly sometimes but not other times. There is no difference in the data types between the rows where the formulas work and the formulas do not work.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
Just needed some help with conditional formatting. I have two columns both with dates - Column A and B. I want to highlight only the dates in B which Date occur 10 days after the date of Column A
Hi Alwin,
You can create a rule with the formula =$B2-$A2=10 (row 2 is supposed to be the first row with data.
Thanks for your reply
while I am using this formula it is showing TRUE/FALSE. Actually I need to highlight that column with a specific color and also need to see the date.
I need to highlight the Column B.
To highlight the column, you need to create a conditional formatting rule with the above formulas. You can find the detailed steps to create a rule in this tutorial.
Hi Svetlana Cheusheva,
Still I am unable to do this. Please help me to highlight the column B
Column A Column B
01-04-2015 11-04-2015
02-04-2015 17-04-2015
03-04-2015 23-04-2015
04-04-2015 09-04-2015
05-04-2015 15-04-2015
06-04-2015 21-04-2015
07-04-2015 27-04-2015
08-04-2015 13-04-2015
09-04-2015 19-04-2015
10-04-2015 25-04-2015
11-04-2015 01-05-2015
12-04-2015 17-04-2015
13-04-2015 23-04-2015
14-04-2015 29-04-2015
15-04-2015 05-05-2015
16-04-2015 21-04-2015
I need to be able to enter a date and then calculate backwards counting only school days. Example: field trip is October 1, 2015. Field trip packet is due 30 school days prior to trip. I need to exclude weekends, holidays and non-student days.
HI,
I have been trying to figure out a formula that changes the color of the cell to red if the date in the cell is <=10 days away from today's date. i.e if the date in the cell reads 07/12/2015 and I opened the spreed sheet today 07/22/2015 the date on that cell should be highlighted in red.
Hi Manny,
You can create a rule with the following formula, where A2 is the top-most cell with your dates:
=TODAY()-$A2>=10
Good day,
I have a column with dates and I need them to be highlighted if they do not fall in given windows.
For example:
Window 1: 1-May-15 till 12-Jun-15
Window 2: 26-Jun-15 till 31-Jul-15
Window 3: 14-Aug-15 till 18-Sep-15
Window 4: 2-Oct-15 till 6-Nov-15
So I need to know if 07/22/15 does not fall in between any of these windows and have it highlighted if it does not.
Thank you for your consideration.
Hi,
I'm trying to highlight a row depending on the difference in 2 dates.
e.g. if the difference is greater than 1 month then the row needs to go red, if less than a month then the row needs to go green.
Is there a formula that can do this?
I have 3 columns in excel:
- Plan Duration Days (e.g.: 15)
- Start Date (e.g.: 1-June-2015)
- Available days / week (e.g.: 3)
Expected Completion Date: 1-July-2015
Can I calculate expected completion date from the excel formula?
Hi,
I'm running a transport system, and I need to track where my trucks are at a particular point in time.
I have an ETA (Expected Time of Arrival) for all the drivers according to their destinations.
Now, I need a conditional formatting rule to show (in colors) how long a driver spends on his journey at these three points using the commencement date.1. Workshop 2. In-transit 3. Customer Outlet
Eg. Customer A outlet takes 5 days to arrive. The driver spends two days in the workshop (I need this column to show green), he spends another 3 days in-transit (this should still show green), and he arrives at the customer's location on the sixth day (this will show amber) as he is behind target.
Regards,
Reagan
Hello-
I have read through all of the questions on this page and didn’t see this specific question asked. I would greatly appreciate your assistance!
I have an excel worksheet- starting in column and row D6 (start date), E6 (End date), and F6 (Frequency). Across the rows at the top we have weeks starting in column and row G4, H4, I4, etc = (July 13, July 20, July 27), etc.
My first conditional format- to color in the weeks where a communication was sent, worked. That formula was: =AND(G$4$D6) and it applied to: =$G$6:$AM$38
This worked well for the rows with the frequency of daily or weekly. Where we are struggling with is conditionally formatting rows to fill cells with monthly repetition.
Currently, the formula I have: =AND(G$4$D7) is for a specific row i.e. applies to: =$G$7:$AN$7 and this highlights the specific cell that corresponds to the week of the first date that the communication was sent out.
My first question:
1) How do I create a specific conditional formatting rule using the =AND(G$4$D7) formula that fills in a cell every 30 days or 1 month and also corresponds to the correct week, leaves the remainder of the cells blank for that row, and that also ends when the end date in column E says? Will I have to have 2 separate formulas for each row with a monthly frequency? One for filling in the cells, the other for shading the remainder blank? Also, I should be able to specify in one rule that the formula applies to row 7, 10, 15, 22 for example in the “Applies to” section without having to make a new rule for each row, correct?
2) What is the order in the rules manager that these rules should be placed? Should the original formula for all cells be placed at the top or bottom?
Thank you in advance for the help.
Ok think I have a mission imposable here, I need to do an “if, than conditional formatting”. So column “A” is the item “B” is the Due date and “C” is the delivery date. So I need the date in Column “B” to be Green if “C” is blank and “B” is greater than 120 days out, Yellow if “C” is blank and “B” is 60-120 days out and Red if “C” is blank and “B” is less than 60 days out. Is this even possible?
Hi Chris,
Of course, it's possible. If my understanding is correct, "greater than 120 days out" means more than 120 days from the current date. If so, you can create 3 rules based on the following formulas (assuming that row 2 is your top-most row with data):
Green: =AND($C2="", $B2-TODAY()>120)
Yellow: =AND($C2="", $B2-TODAY()>=60, $B2-TODAY()<=120)
Red: =AND($C2="", $B2-TODAY()<60)
I want cells to turn red if date is within 30 days of maturity date, turn green if within 15 days and turn yellow if within 3 days.
For Ex if Maturity date is 07-Apr-2016, I need that cell to be red if date(current) is 07-Mar-2016 and so on.
Please advise formulae to be used for above.
Hi Nick,
Assuming that the Maturity date is in cell A1, you can create 3 rules based on the following formulas:
Red: =AND($A$1-TODAY()<=30, $A$1-TODAY()>15)
Green: =AND($A$1-TODAY()<=15, $A$1-TODAY()>3)
Yellow: =AND($A$1-TODAY()<=3, $A$1-TODAY()>0)
Hi,
I'm trying to build a gantt chart and I'm stuck with conditional formatting. I'm trying to fill up the total number of working days excluding the weekend.
Basically I have,
[dur][start][end=(start)+(dur)-1][completion-%]
My current formula,
This is to highlight the date
=AND(AND(J$4>=$F8,J$4<=$G8),$A8"")
This is to highlight the completion percentage
=AND($A8"",$H8>0,J$4>=$F8,J$4<=($F8+$H8*($G8-$F8)))
Is there a way to use skip the weekend?
Hi,
I have a large spreadsheet with a column containing dates, and need to have a column next to this one which names which year the date falls into.
Eg, if a date is between 01/08/12 and 31/07/13 the 2nd column needs to say "year 1", 01/08/13 - 31/07/14 is "year 2" and so on.
I'm sure this should be fairly simple I just cant work it out!!
Hi Roy,
You don't need conditional formatting in this case. Use a nested IF function similar to this:
=IF(AND(A1>=DATEVALUE("1-Aug-2012"), A1<=DATEVALUE("31-Jul-2013")), "year1", IF(A1<=DATEVALUE("31-Jul-2014"), "year2", ""))
Hi Svetlana,
That's brilliant, I suspected I was doing something fundamentally wrong!
Thanks for your help!
Roy
Hi,
I'm creating a table for Targeted Dates and Targeted Times, based on Initial Dates and Initial Start Time. How do I format a cell, if using 24hr clock, if a time (midnight) falls into the next day? I need the cell to calculate to the following day, based on the time, but it should also remain the current date if time falls within the current time frame. Hope this makes sense.
Hi,
I'm creating a resource plan in which I would like to highlight that a resource is available for project work only 3 days a week.
E.g.:
Mr. A works every Thursday on A task (full year)
Mr. A works every Friday on B task (full year)
Mr. A is available for a project from Monday - Wednesday for project/sprint work
I have hard coded formatting for initial 2 logic but not able to apply conditional formatting on 3 days a week. Based upon inputted dates, the formatting is coloring the whole duration however I don't want to apply formatting on Thursdays and Fridays.
Hi -
I am trying to create a visit schedule. I have formatted all of the cells to be in the date format. The initial cell is blank; however, when I insert formulas below to calculate other visit dates that are based on the initial cell a random date will populate. I would like all cells to remain blank until the initial cell is populated with a start date of my choosing. Please advise.
Study Visit Visit Date
Day 1
Day 15 15-Jan-00
Day 30 30-Jan-00
Day 45 14-Feb-00