title: Conditional formatting with date comparison in Google Sheets
body: <p>I'm rather stuck on what should be a simple formula for a couple of conditional formatting rules in Google Sheets. My data consists of dates in the format <code>DD/MM/YYYY</code> (as set in Format->Number->Date). I've got a reference date "Last Updated" at <code>A1</code>, and a column of dates at the range <code>B1:B9</code>. Both of my rules are applied to this range, and should work like the following:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>IF <strong>this</strong> date is greater than or equal to (i.e. later) the date at A1 --> Background is yellow.</li>
  <li>IF <strong>this</strong> date is less than (i.e. earlier) the date at A1 --> Background is green.</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>I've tried a number of different formulas, but none seem to work properly or as expected. For example, with the first conditional formatting rule:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><code>=$B1 &gt;= A1</code></li>
  <li><code>=GTE($B1, A1)</code></li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>...and again with <code>VALUE($B1)</code>, <code>DATEVALUE($B1)</code></p>
  
  <p>Here are the results of the first rule with a custom formula <code>=(VALUE($B1) &gt;= VALUE(A1))</code>. It doesn't look too accurate to me.</p>
  
  <pre><code>-- A ---------- B ---------- Expected ---------- Actual ----------
  1  02/02/2015   01/01/2015   FALSE               FALSE
  2               02/01/2015   FALSE               TRUE (YELLOW)
  3               03/01/2015   FALSE               TRUE (YELLOW)
  4               01/02/2015   FALSE               TRUE (YELLOW)
  5               02/02/2015   TRUE (YELLOW)       TRUE (YELLOW)
  6               03/02/2015   TRUE (YELLOW)       FALSE
  7               01/03/2015   TRUE (YELLOW)       FALSE
  8               02/03/2015   TRUE (YELLOW)       FALSE
  9               03/03/2015   TRUE (YELLOW)       TRUE (YELLOW)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm hoping that I'm just overlooking something simple, could someone point me in the right direction?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks!</p>