During a Microsoft Excel training session a few week’s ago, I had a great question about using conditional formatting to highlight dates earlier than the current one, in other words, how can we highlight dates that occur in the past? This was a great question and so I thought I would publish a post this week about how to do this.
If you haven’t used conditional formatting in Excel before, be sure to check out my post outlining how to use conditional formatting in Excel.
- Open the workbook you wish to apply the formatting to
- Highlight the column which contains the dates you wish to work with
- From the Home tab select the Conditional Formatting button and choose New Rule
- The New Formatting Rule dialog box will appear:
- From the Select a Rule Type, choose Format only cells that contain
- In the Edit the Rule Description section you need to tell Excel that any cell which contains a date which is less than today’s date, highlight it.
- In the Format only cells with section, leave the first drop down menu set as Cell Value
- For the next drop down menu change it to less than as shown below:
- In the formula box type =TODAY()
- This formula will look for a cell value that is less than “today”:
- Now to specify a format you wish to apply, click the Format button
- I have chosen to have the text change to Red and Bold
- Click OK
- Click OK again to complete the Conditional Formatting rule
- Any dates which occur prior to today’s date will now appear in the formatting you selected:
Note: For the above example, today’s date is 20 February 2017.
Want to conditional format for a range of dates?
Click here to see how you can use conditional formatting for a range of dates.
Love this article? Comment below and let me know how you’ve utilised this feature. Be sure to check out my other Microsoft Excel content here.
Jenette says
May 25, 2019 at 8:09 amI’ve searched & searched & hope you can help…
I have a column with various due dates. I want the due date cells to highlight 15 days before the date entered (sort of a warning that the due date is coming up). So if I have a due date of 5/15/2020, i would like the cell to change colors on 5/1/2020, etc. Is there a way to do that?
Thanks so much!
Belinda Anderson says
May 31, 2019 at 12:56 pmHi Jenette,
This is a great question and one I have had a few times. So I’ve written you a full post with the instructions on how to do this. You can view it at http://www.thetraininglady.com/conditional-formatting-dates-range/. Let me know how you go.
Thanks, Belinda
Maria says
May 15, 2019 at 2:55 pmHow can you ignore blank cells with this formula?
thanks
Belinda Anderson says
May 16, 2019 at 3:34 pmHi Maria,
Because this is achieved using Conditional Formatting, and not an actual formula we are unable to have it ignore blank cells. If you only apply font based formatting such as bold text, or change the font colour, the blank cells will not change in appearance. If however, you apply formatting such as a Fill colour then blank cells will also be formatted. Simple switch the formatting type over to just the options on the Font tab within the Format Cells dialog box and you should have no formatting being applied to blank cells. Hope this helps.
Belinda
Michelle says
March 7, 2019 at 8:44 amI tried several other search results, none of which worked. This is the only one that actually worked and was simple to do – thank you!
Belinda Anderson says
March 7, 2019 at 10:29 amThank you Michelle for the feedback. So glad to hear it worked and was simple. 🙂
sally says
November 3, 2018 at 6:45 pmHi this is a great help but I want to add a second condition to clear when the task is completed by another cell having a Y entered in it – how do I do that please? (I don’t even know the terminology to look it up I’m afraid)
Belinda Anderson says
November 5, 2018 at 7:29 pmHi Sally,
From what you have written I think you could use a combination of an IF statement and then conditional formatting to achieve what you are after. If you’d like to send a screenshot of your workbook to info@thetraininglady.com I’m happy to take a look at it and give you some details, or even upload a post to the site with instructions on how to achieve what you are after.
Thanks,
Belinda
aka The Training Lady