Alternate Cell Color According to Date In Cell

[eglick]

Hello,

I have a spreadsheet where in column ‘J’ I tabulate the total daily lbs. sold. This means that when the date changes in column ‘A’, the tally in column ‘J’ starts over. To make this more readily clear for the user, I wanted to alternate the cell color in column ‘J’ as the date changes in column ‘A’. For the record, the dates are completely random and can have any sort chronological gap.

I’ve used cell conditional formatting before using the formula “A8<>A7” to highlight when days change, but that only highlights the actual date change. This formula would need to determine if the date has changed, and if the following dates are the same, to use the same fill color for those cells. Basically, the cell color needs to alternate between dates like in the mock-up below.

I explored using this formula “=AND(J144>=J143,A144=A143)”, but that doesn’t fully perform the needed highlights, and gives me the following results.

Instead of conditionally assigning a fill color, is there a way to tell Excel to conditionally match the previous cell color?

Thank you for reading my post.

 

[Peter_SSs]

Welcome to the MrExcel board!

For providing sample data in the future, I suggest that you investigate the following:
MrExcel has a tool called “XL2BB” that lets you post samples of your data that will allow us to copy/paste it to our Excel spreadsheets, so we can work with the same copy of data that you are. Instructions on using this tool can be found here: XL2BB Add-in

Note that there is also a "Test Here” forum on this board. This is a place where you can test using this tool (or any other posting techniques that you want to test) before trying to use those tools in your actual posts.

I would use a helper column (which could be hidden) like this.

21 12 29.xlsm
	A									J											U
1	Date									Amount											0
2	05-Aug-21									6,767											1
3	05-Aug-21									2,276											1
4	05-Aug-21									2,411											1
5	05-Aug-21									3,482											1
6	05-Aug-21									9,774											1
7	07-Aug-21									8,156											0
8	07-Aug-21									9,654											0
9	08-Aug-21									1,451											1
10	25-Aug-21									2,302											0
11	25-Aug-21									1,618											0
12	25-Aug-21									5,517											0
13	25-Aug-21									4,325											0
14	25-Aug-21									7,637											0
15	16-Nov-21									5,251											1
16	16-Nov-21									1,155											1
Cond Format In Groups

Cell Formulas
Range	Formula
U2:U16	U2	=IF(A2=A1,U1,1-U1)

Cells with Conditional Formatting
Cell	Condition		Cell Format	Stop If True
J2:J16	Expression	=$U2	text	NO

 

[eglick]

Hi Peter,

Thank you so much for your solution. Never thought of using a hidden helper column, that does the trick. I'll have to remember that on future sheets.

Thanks again, I'm off and running again.

 

[Peter_SSs]

You're welcome. Thanks for the follow-up.