Joerg, that worked with one color but I would prefer to alternate between
blue and green each month.

"Joerg Mochikun" wrote:

I assume that the OP wants first and last days of the month included:
If cells C2:C13 are filled with "Jan"...Dec", then

1) Select range C2:C13
2) From menu select Format = Conditional Formatting
3) For Condition1 select 'Formula is'
4) Type formula
=C2=CHOOSE(MONTH(NOW())-1,"Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec")
4) Set a colors for this condition
5) Press 'OK'

Now the month before the present month should appear with the selected
color.

Cheers,

Joerg Mochikun





"Gord Dibben" <gorddibbATshawDOTca wrote in message
...
You say between Jan 1 and Jan 31

What do you want if the date is Jan 1 or Jan 31?


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:31:00 -0700, Loadmaster
wrote:

Cells C2:C13 has JAN - DEC. If todays month is between the 1 - 31 of Jan I
require the previous month "DEC" conditionally formatted with a color that
I
specify from the color pallet. If todays month is between the 1-28 or 29th
of
Feb I require the previous cell month "JAN" also conditionally color
formatted. As conditional formatting only allows you to set a maximum of
three conditions, how do I format all the months in C2:C13 the same way?