Highlighting cells in a column based on other cells dates in the same row

Question

I have a spreadsheet that is used to track the last date a set of logs was downloaded. We need to take logs at around the 7 day mark if possible (not critical).. We have approximately 170 assets that we do this to. The way the spreadsheet is set up the new date is added to an ever expanding list (rather than just overwriting) i have used conditional formatting to show that a date is less than 7 days old but that cell can be 20 columns accross and is still hard to cross reference to the asset number. I want to highlight column A if any other cell in the same row is highlighted (unless you have a less clunky way of doing it, having the date highlighted really is unimportant it is simply as far as i can get on my own.

I even tried doing a sort by cell colour but that seems to require that i pick one coulmn only.

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

Conditional formatting will do this for you. I used this example: Column A has dates, Columns B and C have miscellaneous gibberish . (click the link to view the image)

Select the entire range of cells you want to follow these rules (possibly just "select all" to be sure you are getting future additions as well, then choose Conditional Formatting from the ribbon.

Conditional Formatting > Use a formula to determine...

Then enter the following code. =TODAY()-$A2<7 Update $A2 with whatever cell contains your first date value, and be sure to put a $ in front of its column reference so that the formula references only your date column and doesn't wander. Code: =TODAY()-$A2<7

Click the "Format" button to set whatever format you like (I chose yellow fill).