To highlight dates that fall between two dates, use conditional formatting with an AND formula. Select your date column (say A2:A20), go to Home → Conditional Formatting → New Rule → Use a formula to determine which cells to format, and enter =AND(A2>=DATE(2026,1,17),A2<=DATE(2026,3,19)), then pick a fill colour.
Two points that decide whether this works. The reference must be the first cell of your selection and relative (A2, not $A$2) — Excel applies the rule to every cell by shifting that reference down, so locking it highlights all rows or none.
And it’s better to put the two limits in cells and point at them: =AND($A2>=$E$1,$A2<=$E$2) lets you change the range by editing E1 and E2 rather than reopening the rule. Use $A2 with the column locked if you want the whole row highlighted rather than just the date cell.
You have dates in the column and want to highlight all the dates within the range of two dates.
Let’s say you have a start date of 17-Jan-2017 and an end date of 19-Mar-2017, and from the dates column, you want to highlight all the cells in which date is between these two dates.
For this, the easiest way is to use conditional formatting. You can use a formula based on AND and DATE functions. You just need to create a new rule in conditional formatting with this formula. Let’s follow these steps.
[thrive_leads id=’112075′]Steps to use CF to Highlight Dates Between Two Dates
- First, select the range or column (A2:A20) where you have dates.
- Now, go to Home Tab ⇢ Styles ⇢ Conditional Formatting ⇢ New Rule.
- From here, in the New Rule window, select “Use a formula to determine which cell to format”.
- After that, in the formula input bar, enter the below formula.
- Finally, select a color from the formatting option to apply to cells.
- In the end, click OK.
Once you hit OK, all the cells where dates are within the range which you mentioned will get formatted with the color you have specified.
How this CF formula Works
AND function can take more than one condition and returns TRUE if all the conditions are TRUE, else FALSE.
So when you use this formula in conditional formatting it checks the date in the cell and returns TRUE if that date is within the date range. With that TRUE, conditional formatting apply color to all the cells with dates.
It works if entered exactly as the example. But how could I customize this to get it working with other reference than this specific example? The cells I need to highlight are all cell in column B of sheet 1. My reference date are in cells E32 and E33 on sheet 2. I can’t figure how the formula works, probably because of a lack of Excel knowledge (I don’t know the purpose of >and <, trying to find out but I don't know the name of these symbols…)
Hi Puneet,
I’ve tried the this method but not got the result. Could you please tell me what is the issue with it.
Where you stuck?
A perhaps slightly shorter means of restricting a conditional formula to highlight only when row numbers are even is to state:
=and(iseven(row(a1)),type other condition(s) here)
Similarly restrict to odd numbered rows by:
=and(isodd(row(a1)),type other condition(s) here)
Note, XL automatically coverts lower case text of standard terms to upper case upon pressing enter to finish
XL accepts multiple different conditional formulae acting on any same area of a spreadsheet.
Those show listed. Importantly XL applies them in the order listed but that can be altered. Sometimes the
priority order is hard to remember & can become disordered. Consequently for easy recognition I begin priority 1 as:
=and(1=1,enter condition here). Similarly begin subsequent priorities with =and(2=2, =and(3=3, etc.