This post includes a free download link for a dynamic yearly calendar template in Google Sheets, along with detailed explanations of the formulas employed in its creation.

The template is dynamic in the sense that adjusting the year in one cell triggers an automatic update of the entire calendar, spanning from January to December.

I hope you can effortlessly manage your entire year with our pre-formatted Google Sheets dynamic yearly calendar template. Its clean design and minimal formulas make it easy to plan vacations, monitor events, and track birthdays.

Key Features

1. No need to edit the entire calendar every year; simply change the year in one cell, and the entire calendar updates.
2. Includes individual tabs for each month.
3. The calendar displays days instead of dates, but the underlying values are dates, making it useful for conditional formatting or Lookups.
4. You can input a list of holidays or specific dates into a predefined column, and the corresponding days will be highlighted in the calendar.
5. You have the option to add notes below dates, and the formulas won’t break, as individual formulas are employed for each week.

These are the key features of our free dynamic calendar template in Google Sheets.

To preview and download the template, click the button below. For instructions on how to use it, refer to the sections below.

Yearly Calendar

Effectively Utilizing Our Google Sheets Dynamic Yearly Calendar

The template comprises 13 sheets named ‘Year Control,’ ‘Jan,’ ‘Feb,’ ‘Mar,’ ‘Apr,’ ‘May,’ ‘Jun,’ ‘Jul,’ ‘Aug,’ ‘Sep,’ ‘Oct,’ ‘Nov,’ and ‘Dec.’

The sheet ‘Year Control’ manages the entire month’s calendar. In cell C2, enter the year for which you want to populate the yearly calendar.

Currently, it contains the year 2023. If you wish to generate the 12-month calendar for the year 2024, simply replace 2023 with 2024 in cell C2.

How to Use the Dynamic Yearly Calendar Template in Google Sheets:

Please refer to the screenshot of the January month’s calendar.

• Highlighting Dates: If you want to emphasize any date in the calendar, such as holidays, upcoming birthdays, or other events like marriages and business meetings, enter them in column K under holidays.
• Personal Notes: There are two blank rows below each week’s dates, highlighted in light grey. You can enter any notes in them. As a side note, you can look up data on another sheet and dynamically display it below each date. Please check my calendar view template for that.
• Column C contains formulas in rows corresponding to the calendar icon in column B.

These usage instructions apply to each month’s calendar in the template.

How to Create a Dynamic Yearly Calendar in Google Sheets

To elucidate the formulas and demonstrate how to create a dynamic yearly calendar template, let’s concentrate on the ‘Feb’ sheet.

If we were to choose the ‘Jan’ sheet, I wouldn’t be able to explain the formula accurately because the first week of January 2023 starts on Sunday.

The calendar template header (C3:I3) contains the days of the week from Sunday to Saturday. Therefore, if we use January, I won’t be able to illustrate how aligning the date in the first week corresponds to the days of the week in the header.

The formula is the same across all sheets, so there’s no need to worry about the sheet we choose for the explanation.

Let’s proceed with the step-by-step instructions to create a dynamic yearly calendar in Google Sheets.

As previously mentioned, cell C2 in the ‘Year Control’ sheet contains the year for the calendar to populate. In cell I1 on the ‘Feb’ sheet, enter the following formula to fetch that year.

='Year Control'!C2

In cell H1, input the text “February.” For other sheets, replace this text with the corresponding month names.

In the cell range C3:I3, enter the following days of the week: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Please refer to the screenshot below.

Key Formula for Populating Dates in the Calendar Template

In cell C5, enter the following formula:

=SEQUENCE(1, 7, DATE(I1, MONTH(H1&1), 1)-WEEKDAY(DATE(I1, MONTH(H1&1), 1))+1)

The above formula returns date values (numbers). I’ve formatted them as dates using Format > Number > Date to show you the relevant dates. To format them as days, follow these steps:

1. Select the cell range C5:I5.
2. Click Format > Number > Custom number format.
3. Enter dd in the given field and click Apply.

This SEQUENCE formula is the key to generating the dynamic yearly calendar in Google Sheets. Let me explain it.

Syntax of the SEQUENCE Function:

SEQUENCE(rows, [columns], [start], [step])

Where:

• rows is 1
• columns is 7
• start is DATE(I1, MONTH(H1&1), 1)-WEEKDAY(DATE(I1, MONTH(H1&1), 1))+1

Let’s further break down this start argument.

Section #1:

DATE(I1, MONTH(H1&1), 1)

This formula calculates the date of the first day of a specified month in a given year. In this case, the result will be February 1, 2023.

Syntax of the DATE Function:

DATE(year, month, day)

Where:

• year: I1 is the cell reference containing the year.
• month: MONTH(H1&1) converts the month name in cell H1 to a month number.
• day: 1 is the day number, which is always 1 for the first day of the month.

Section #2:

If we only use section #1 as the start argument, the SEQUENCE formula will return the dates from Wed, 1 Feb 2023 to Tue, 7 Feb 2023. It’s not aligned with the days of the week in the header, which goes from Sunday to Saturday.

How do we align it?

We subtract the weekday number of the start date plus 1 from the start date. Therefore, the start date in the SEQUENCE will become Sunday, January 29, 2023.

DATE(I1, MONTH(H1&1), 1)-WEEKDAY(DATE(I1, MONTH(H1&1), 1))+1

We will then hide the unwanted previous month’s dates using a highlighting rule, which we will cover later.

Let’s go to the other formulas used in the dynamic yearly calendar template.

Other Formulas

In cell C8, enter the following formula and then copy-paste it to C11, C14, C17, and C20.

=SEQUENCE(1, 7, I5+1)

All of them will return 7 date values starting from the date in the last cell of the previous week. Format them as days, similar to how we have done with the date values in C5:I5.

Note: Similar to the first week, the last week may include dates that fall in another month. We will hide them using conditional formatting rules.

Concealing Dates Across Different Months in the First and Last Weeks

To address this, we need to apply a highlight rule to emphasize certain dates in the first and last weeks of the calendar.

1. Select the range C5:I20.
2. Click on Format > Conditional formatting.
3. Choose ‘Custom formula is’ under the ‘Format rules.’
4. Copy and paste this formula into the given field: =AND(MONTH(C5)<>MONTH($H$1&1), ISDATE(C5))
5. Under ‘Formatting style,’ select “white” for text color.
6. Click ‘Done.’

The highlight rule is essentially an AND logical test and functions as follows:

• MONTH(C5)<>MONTH($H$1&1): Checks whether the month of the date in cell C5 is not the same as the month in cell H1.
• ISDATE(C5): Verifies whether the value in cell C5 is a date.

If both conditions are evaluated as TRUE, the rule applies the highlighting, changing the text color to white.

C5 is a relative cell reference. Therefore, the rule will apply to all cells in the range to which it is applied, i.e., C5:I20.

The above steps are crucial in our dynamic calendar template and should be followed. The subsequent highlighting is optional.

Highlighting Holidays or Other Specific Days in the Yearly Calendar Template

This is the final step in creating the dynamic yearly calendar in Google Sheets.

Our dynamic calendar template has a feature that allows you to highlight specific days in the calendar. You need to enter those dates in column K.

To apply that rule, insert the following formula in the custom formula field:

=XMATCH(C5, $K$4:$K)

Syntax of the XMATCH Function:

XMATCH(search_key, lookup_range, [match_mode], [search_mode])

Where:

• C5 is the search_key
• $K$4:$K is the lookup_range.

All the steps are the same as we have done with our previous rule, except for the formula and the fill color. Please refer to the screenshot below.

The XMATCH function matches C5 with the dates listed in column K. Here also, C5 is relative, so it will apply to all cells in the specified range.

Conclusion

I’ve explained how to use our dynamic yearly calendar template in Google Sheets as well as how to create one on your own.

The creation part is intended to assist you in customizing the template according to your requirements. When you insert new rows, delete rows, or change cell colors, understanding the existing formulas will guide you in making the necessary adjustments.

If you have any doubts, please feel free to leave a comment.