Format cells based on input in multiple other cells

Question

The purpose of the sheet in question is to allow a group of people working on a project to see who is responsible for what task on what date. To achieve this, there are:

• three columns: D (task responsibility), E (start date), F (end date)
• multiple columns starting at G: each designating one day, ie G is 17-Feb, H is 18-Feb etc.
• a number of rows, each assigned a specific task

For instance pertaining to task X:

• cell C5 denotes the task (irrelevant here)
• cell D5 denotes the person that is responsible for the task. If it is, say, B, certain cells from G5 onwards (H5, I5, etc), should be filled with color purple, but
• only the cells should be filled within the respective time period as set in cell E (start date) and F (end date), ie if the start date is 17-Feb (cell G3) and the end date is 18-Feb (cell H3), G5 and H5 should be purple.
• Each person should be allocated a different color.

I'm not very experienced with Excel but willing to learn, that's why I turn to you. I was experimenting with conditional formatting and also a little bit of VBA, but I'm not there yet. This is why I would be most grateful for your help. I have researched the forum, and continue to find hints that may be of help, so I'll keep trying.

Answer 1

Please try a series of Conditional Formatting rules (choose the colour according to the value in ColumnD) of this kind:

=AND(G$3>=$E5,G$3<=$F5)  

with Applies to: =$G$5:however far across you wish, for the same row.