Formula for finding past dates

**dmcfarland** · 04-11-2007, 11:44 AM

I am VERY new to Excel...VERY new...so I'm not sure if this can be done, but I would like for a cell to change colors if the date is a PAST date.
In other words, I have many dates and I'd like to easily detect the ones that are past due by changing the color or some other means.
Any help would be appreciated.

**carsto** · 04-11-2007, 11:53 AM

yes, from the Format Menu select Conditional Formatting

here you can set the criteria for the cell format based on either the contents of the cell or even on a formula that looks at another cell.

there are many options to evaluate on - greater than, less than, equal to, between etc.

**starguy** · 04-11-2007, 12:07 PM

Originally Posted by dmcfarland

I am VERY new to Excel...VERY new...so I'm not sure if this can be done, but I would like for a cell to change colors if the date is a PAST date.
In other words, I have many dates and I'd like to easily detect the ones that are past due by changing the color or some other means.
Any help would be appreciated.

you can change colour of cells which meet some crieteria by using Conditional Formatting.
see link below for how it works.

http://www.contextures.com/xlCondFormat01.html