Tips If you want to have your "past due date" trigger more frequently than once per 12 months, change the second term in the EDATE function in cell B1.

Now, let’s set a conditional formatting rule that highlights due dates that match the current date, which in this case is Feb. 13, 2021: Select the data. In this case, that’s C4:C8.

When this happens, use the DATEVALUE function to convert the text dates to Excel serial numbers. To test this function, enter five dates—as text—in cells A5 through A9.

Excel has over 475 formulas in its Functions Library, but we've selected the most popular, from date and time functions to mathematics and simple data manipulation.