Compare Date Columns And Highlight Differences

[DataWrangler]

Excel 2007/Windows 7 Pro.

Thanks in advance. I have dates arranged in columns and I would like to compare column B to column A, column C to column B, column D to column C, and so on up to column n compared to column (n-1). See example table below.

Easy enough to compare with, for example, =if(B2=A2, "SAME", "DIFFERENT").

But I am looking for a way to do the comparison without inserting a column between A and B, between B and C, between C and D, etc. I've experimented with various combinations of nested IFs and VLOOKUPs in combination with conditional formatting, but I just can't make it work.

Desired end state is that any date that doesn't match the date in the column to which it's being compared is highlighted/formatted as a change.

So in the below, in row 1, all dates are 5/8/17, no changes.
In row 2, all the same up to column D. Format column D as a changed date.
In row 3, all the same up to column C. Format column C as a changed date. blank<blank> is a valid value in the dataset.

Original	B	C	D
5/8/17	5/8/17	5/8/17	5/8/17
6/3/17	6/3/17	6/3/17	7/1/17
<blank>blank</blank>	<blank>blank</blank>	11/23/17	11/23/17
6/1/17	6/1/17	6/1/17	<blank>blank</blank>
10/3/17	10/5/17	10/5/17	10/5/17
12/11/16	12/11/16	11/30/17	11/17/17
7/4/1776	7/20/1969	12/7/1941	10/21/2015

<tbody>
</tbody>

</blank>

 

[Scott T]

try

Excel 2010

	A	B	C	D
1	Original	B	C	D
2	5/8/2017	5/8/2017	5/8/2017	5/8/2017
3	6/3/2017	6/3/2017	6/3/2017	7/1/2017
4	blank	blank	11/23/2017	11/23/2017
5	6/1/2017	6/1/2017	6/1/2017	blank
6	10/3/2017	10/5/2017	10/5/2017	10/5/2017
7	12/11/2016	12/11/2016	11/30/2017	11/17/2017
8	7/4/1976	7/20/1969	12/7/1941	10/21/2015

<tbody>
</tbody>

Sheet5​

Select B2:D8 in conditional formatting use

=A2<>B2

select your formatting

 

[DataWrangler]

@ScottT, thanks! I knew I was overengineering it.

Easy and elegant.

 

[Scott T]

You're welcome