Highlight expired and upcoming dates in Excel – a full guide

In any dynamic work environment, managing dates effectively in Excel is crucial, especially when tracking important deadlines, contract expiration dates, or scheduled events. This comprehensive guide will teach you how to efficiently highlight expired and upcoming dates in your spreadsheets. We'll explore two powerful methods that will help you maintain project timelines and manage subscription renewals with ease.

• Using Conditional Formatting
• Streamlining with Kutools for Excel

Efficiently Highlight Expired and Upcoming Dates in Excel

Throughout this guide, we'll explore 2 reliable methods to help you highlight or select expired and upcoming dates in Excel.

Highlight expired or upcoming date with Conditional Formatting

To apply Conditional Formatting to highlight the expired or upcoming dates, please follow these steps:

1. Select the due date cells, and then click Home > Conditional Formatting > New Rule. See screenshot:

2. Then in the New Formatting Rule dialog, select Use a formula to determine which cells to format under Select a Rule Type section, then enter this formula = B2<=TODAY() (B2 is the first cell in the selected dates) to the Format values where this formula is true textbox, you can change it to meet your need), and then click Format. See screenshot:

3. In the popping Format Cells dialog, under Fill tab, select one background color as you need to highlight the expired dates. See screenshot:

4. Click OK > OK, now the expired dates have been highlighted, and you can find the relative items. See screenshot:

Select expired dates in Excel with Kutools for Excel

Using Kutools for Excel's "Select Specific Cells" feature, you can quickly identify and select all expired dates within a specified range. This tool automatically selects expired dates, enabling you to perform further operations on these cells as needed, such as applying highlighting colors. This enhances your flexibility in managing and manipulating data directly, streamlining your workflow significantly.

After installing Kutools for Excel, go to the Kutools tab, and then select Select > Select Specific Cells to open the Select Specific Cells dialog box, then you need to:

1. Select the range containing dates you want to highlight the expiration dates in the Select cells in this range field.
2. Choose the Cells option in the Selection type section.
3. In the Specific type section, select less than from the drop-down and enter the current date in the right text box.
4. Click OK.
   

Then all dates less than today (expired dates) will be selected immediately.

Mastering the art of highlighting expired and upcoming dates in Excel not only keeps your data organized but also ensures you are always on top of key deadlines and important events. With the methods provided in this guide, you can confidently manage time-sensitive data in Excel, allowing you to focus more on strategic activities and less on manual data handling. For those eager to delve deeper into Excel's capabilities, our website boasts a wealth of tutorials. Discover more Excel tips and tricks here.