

#Conditional formatting outlook 365 how to#
In this section, we'll look at how to create a conditional formatting rule that formats the cells in the Due Date column if the task was due on a date that is in the past.įirst, select the cells you want to format: Each task has a status and a due date.įormat our cells by comparing the Due Date to the current date

This is a simple Project Checklist spreadsheet that contains the tasks that need to be completed. Let's start by looking at the spreadsheet that we're going to work with. Using a formula as part of your conditional formatting rule is incredibly powerful, since you can incorporate cells from anywhere in your spreadsheet as part of the formula in your conditional formatting rule. You can also use custom formulas to decide whether to apply a specific formatting rule to a range of cells. Excel offers a set of standard conditional formatting options. Applying Conditional Formatting to DatesĬonditional Formatting in Excel allows you to format one or more cells based on the values in those cells. So in this lesson, we'll look at how to apply the formatting to cells containing all dates in the past, not just those in the last month. These are simple and easy to apply but the problem for our scenario is that there isn't a built-in conditional formatting rule that applies to all dates in the past - the best you can do with the built-in rules is to format cells containing dates that are in the last month. Note that Excel's Conditional Formatting feature includes an option to highlight dates according to a range of pre-configured conditional formatting rules. Second, it extends the criteria for the formatting rule so that only those tasks where the due date is in the past AND the task is still open will be highlighted - at a glance, we can tell which tasks are overdue and need attention.First, it shows you how to apply a format to a cell containing a date where that date is in the past - this allows us to see which of the tasks in our project are overdue.This lesson uses a Project Checklist example to demonstrate how to use Conditional Formatting. You can even use the value of other cells in the worksheet as part of your conditional formatting criteria. It allows you to apply formatting to cells or ranges of cells based on criteria that you can choose. Excel's Conditional Formatting feature is incredibly powerful.
