If date this week excel

This post will guide you how to highlight cell if date is the current day or is in the current week or month in Excel. How do I highlight row if date is in current week or month with conditional formatting in Excel 2013/2016.

• Highlight Cell if Date is in Current Day/Week/Month
• Highlight Row if Date is in Current Day/Week/Month

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To highlight the cell of current day or the date is in the current week or month, you can do the following steps:

#1 select the range of cells that you want to highlight date.

#2 go to HOME tab, click Conditional Formatting command under Styles group, and click Highlight Cells Rules menu from the drop down menu list, then select A Date Occurring sub menu. And the A Date Occurring dialog will appear.

#3 if you want to highlight the current day, then select Today option from the first drop down list box in the A Date Occurring dialog box, then choose one color that you want to fill the cell in the second drop down list box. Click Ok button.

Note: if you want to highlight the cell if date is in the current week, just choose This Week option from the first drop down list box. And if you want to highlight the cell if date is in the current month, just choose This Month from the first drop down list box.

#4 you should notice that the current date has been highlighted.

Highlight Row if Date is in Current Day/Week/Month

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If you want to highlight the row that If the date in that row is equal to the current day or is in the current week or month, you can do the following steps:

#1 select the entire rows of data that contain date values.

#2 go to HOME tab, click Conditional Formatting command under Styles group, Click New Rule from the drop down menu list. And the New Formatting Rule dialog will open.

#3 click Use a formula to determine which cells to format option in the New Formatting Rule dialog box, type the following formula in the Format values where this formulas is true text box.

To highlight current date, use the following formula:

=$A2=TODAY()

To highlight row if date is in the current week, use the following formula:

=TODAY()-WEEKDAY(TODAY(), 3)=$A2-WEEKDAY($A2, 3)

To highlight row if date is in the current month, use the following formula:

=TEXT($A2,”mmyy”)=TEXT(TODAY(),”mmyy”)

Note: the Cell A2 is the first cell of your selected range.

#4 click Format button, and the Format Cells dialog will open. Click Fill tab, select on color that you want to use. Click Ok button.

#5 click Ok button. You should see that the entire rows which contain the current day have been highlighted.

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The IF function is one of the most useful Excel functions. It is used to test a condition and return one value if the condition is TRUE and another if it is FALSE.

One of the most common applications of the IF function involves the comparison of values.

These values can be numbers, text, or even dates. However, using the IF statement with date values is not as intuitive as it may seem.

In this tutorial, I will demonstrate some ways in which you can use the IF function with date values.

Syntax and Usage of the IF Function in Excel

The syntax for the IF function is as follows:

IF(logical_test, [value_if_true], [value_if_false])

Here,

• logical_test is the condition or criteria that you want the IF function to test. The result of this parameter is either TRUE or FALSE
• value_if_true is the value that you want the IF function to return if the logical_test evaluates to TRUE
• value_if_false is the value that you want the IF function to return if the logical_test evaluates to FALSE

For example, say you want to write a statement that will return the value “yes” if the value in cell reference A2 is equal to 10, and “no” if it’s anything but 10.

You can then use the following IF function for this scenario:

=IF(A2=10,"yes","no")

Comparing Dates in Excel (Using Operators)

Unlike numbers and strings, comparison operators, when used with dates, have a slightly different meaning.

Here are some of the comparison operators that you can use when comparing dates, along with what they mean:

Operator	What it Means When Using with Dates
<	Before the given date
=	Same as the date with which we are comparing
>	After the given date
<=	Same as or before the given date
>=	Same as or after the given date

It may look like IF formulas for dates are the same as IF functions for numeric or text values, since they use the same comparison operators.

However, it’s not as simple as that.

Unfortunately, unlike other Excel functions, the IF function cannot recognize dates.

It interprets them as regular text values.

So you cannot use a logical test such as “>05/07/2021” in your IF function, as it will simply see the value “05/07/2021” as text.

Here are a few ways in which you can incorporate date values into your IF function’s logical_test parameter.

Using the IF Function with DATEVALUE Function

If you want to use a date in your IF function’s logical test, you can wrap the date in the DATEVALUE function.

This function converts a date in text format to a serial number that Excel can recognize as a date.

If you put a date within quotes, it is essentially a text or string value.

When you pass this as a parameter to the DATEVALUE function, it takes a look at the text inside the double quotes, identifies it as a date and then converts it to an actual Excel date value.

Let us say you have a date in cell A2, and you want cell B2 to display the value “done” if the date comes before or on the same date as “05/07/2021” and display “not done” otherwise.

You can use the IF function along with DATEVALUE in cell B2 as follows:

=IF(A2<DATEVALUE("05/07/2021"),"done","not done")

Here’s a screenshot to illustrate the effect of the above formula:

Using the IF Function with the TODAY Function

If you want to compare a date with the current date, you can use the IF function with the TODAY function in the logical test.

Let’s say you have a date in cell A2 and you want cell B2 to display the value “done” if it is a date before today’s date.

If not, you want let’s say you want to display the value “not done”. You can use the IF function along with the TODAY function in cell B2 as follows:

=IF(A2<TODAY(),"done","not done")

Here’s a screenshot to illustrate the effect of the above formula (assuming the current date is 05/08/2021):

Using the IF Function with Future or Past Dates

An interesting thing about dates in Excel is that you can perform addition and subtraction operations with them too.

This is because dates are basically stored in Excel as serial numbers, starting from the date Jan 1, 1900.

Each day after that is represented by one whole number.

So, the serial number 2 corresponds to Jan 2, 1900, and so on.

This means that adding n number of days to a date is equivalent to adding the value n to the serial number that the date represents.

If TODAY() is 05/07/2021, then TODAY()+5 is five days after today, or 05/12/2021. Similarly, TODAY()-3 is three days before today or 05/04/2021.

Let’s say you have a date in cell A2 and you want cell B2 to mark it as “within range” if it is within 15 days from the current date.

If not, you want to show “out of range”. You can use the IF function along with the TODAY function in cell B2 as follows:

=IF(A2<TODAY()+15,"within range","out of range")

Here’s a screenshot to illustrate the effect of the above formula (assuming the current date is 05/08/2021):

Points to Remember

Having discussed different ways to use dates with the IF function, here are some important points to remember:

1. Instead of hardcoding the dates into the IF function’s logical test parameter, you can store the date in a separate cell and refer to it with a cell reference. For example, instead of typing =IF(A2<”05/07/2021”,”done”,”not done”), you can store the date 05/07/2021 in a cell, say B2 and type the formula: =IF(A2<B2,”done”,”not done”).

1. Alternatively, you can use the DATEVALUE function as explained in the first part of this tutorial.

1. Another neat technique that you can use is to simply add a zero to the date (which has been enclosed in double quotes). So you can type: =IF(A2<”05/07/2021”+0,”done”,”not done”). This will make Excel take the date inside double quotes as a serial number, and use it in the logical test without having its value changed.

In this tutorial, I showed you some great techniques to use the IF function with dates. I hope the tips covered here were useful for you.

Other articles you may also like:

• Multiple If Statements in Excel (Nested Ifs, AND/OR) with Examples
• How to use Excel If Statement with Multiple Conditions Range [AND/OR]
• How to Convert Month Number to Month Name in Excel
• Why are Dates Shown as Hashtags in Excel? Easy Fix!
• How to Convert Serial Numbers to Date in Excel
• How to Get the First Day Of The Month In Excel?

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Updated 12/16/22: Stay up to date on the latest from Excel and download Excel templates today.

Date functions in Microsoft Excel make it possible to perform date calculations, like addition or subtraction, resulting in automated or semi-automated worksheets. The NOW function, which calculates values based on the current date and time, is a great example of this.

Taking this functionality a step further, when you mix date functions with conditional formatting, you can create spreadsheets that display date alerts automatically when a deadline is near or differentiates between types of days, like weekends and weekdays.

The basics of conditional formatting for dates

To find conditional formatting for dates, go to:

Home > Conditional Formatting > Highlight Cell Rules > A Date Occurring.

You can select the following date options, ranging from yesterday to next month:

These 10 date options generate rules based on the current date. If you need to create rules for other dates (e.g., greater than a month from the current date), you can create your own new rule.

Below are step-by-step instructions for a few of my favorite conditional formats for dates.

Highlighting weekends

When you design an automated calendar you don’t need to color the weekends yourself. With the conditional formatting tool, you can automatically change the colors of weekends by basing the format on the WEEKDAY function. Assume that you have the date table—a calendar without conditional formatting:

To change the color of the weekends, open the menu Conditional Formatting > New Rule.

In the next dialog box, select the menu Use a formula to determine which cell to format.

In the text box Format values where this formula is true, enter the following WEEKDAY formula to determine whether the cell is a Saturday (6) or Sunday (7):

=WEEKDAY(B$5,2)>5

Parameter 2 means Saturday = 6 and Sunday = 7. This parameter is very useful to test for weekends.

Note: In this case, you must lock the reference of the row so that the conditional format will work correctly in the other cells in this table.

Then, customize the format of your condition by clicking on the Format button and you choose a fill color (orange in this example).

Click OK, then open Conditional Formatting> Manage Rules.

Select This Worksheet to see the worksheet rules instead of the default selection. In Applies to, change the range that corresponds to your initial selection when creating your rules to extend it to the whole column.

Now you will see a different color for the weekends. Note: This example shows the result in the Excel Web App.

Highlighting holidays

To enrich the previous workbook, you could also color-code holidays. To do that, you need a column with the holidays you’d like to highlight in your workbook (but not necessarily in the same sheet). In our example, we have US public holidays in column AH (as related to the year in cell B2).

Again, open the menu Conditional Formatting > New Rule. In this case, we use the formula COUNTIF in order to count if the number of public holidays in the current month is greater than 1.

=COUNTIF($AH$4:$AH$16,B$5)>1

Then, in the dialog box Manage Rules, select the range B4:AF11. If you want to highlight the holidays over the weekends, you move the public holiday rule to the top of the list.

This example in the Excel Web App shows the result. Change the value of the month and the year to see how the calendar has a different format.

Highlighting delays

In case we want to change the color of cells based on our approach on a date again, we will use conditional formatting to make it work for us.

In the following example, we show:

• Yellow dates between 1 and 2 months.
• Orange dates between 2 and 3 months.
• Purple dates more than 3 months.

We then construct three rules of conditional formatting using the formula DATEDIF. Respectively for the three cases the following formulas:

=DATEDIF($B2,$E$2,”m”)>0

=DATEDIF($B2,$E$2,”m”)>1

=DATEDIF($B2,$E$2,”m”)>2

In the Excel Web App, try changing some dates to experiment with the result.

Color scales

Rather than choose a different color set for each period in our timeframe, we will work with the option of color scales to color our cells.

First, go into a new column (column E) and calculate the difference in the number of days in a year again with the DATEDIF formula and the parameter “yd”.

=DATEDIF($D2,TODAY(),”yd”)

Then choose the menu Conditional Formatting> New Rule option Format all cells based on their value and choose the following options:

• Scale = 3 colors
• Minimum = 0 Green
• Midpoint = 10 White
• Maximum = 30 Blue

The result is a gradient color scale with nuances from green to white and through blue. The closer to 0 the more green, the closer to 10 the more white, and the closer to 30 the more blue. In the Excel app, try changing some dates to experiment with the result.

Learn more

Explore Microsoft Excel today.

Additional resources:

• Read more about the DATE function.
• Read how to format numbers as dates and times.