What is excel date value

Функция DATEVALUE (ДАТАЗНАЧ) в Excel используется для тех ситуаций, когда дата в ячейке указана в виде текста. С её помощью Excel конвертирует текстовое значение даты в число, которое система распознает как дату.

Какие данные отображает

Функция возвращает дату в виде числового значения, понятного по формату для Excel. Например, если мы используем функцию =DATEVALUE («1/1/2016») или =ДАТАЗНАЧ(«1/1/2016») , она будет возвращать число 42370, которое является числовым значением даты 01-01-2016.

Синтаксис

=DATEVALUE (“date_text”) — английская версия
=ДАТАЗНАЧ («дата_как_текст») — русская версия

Аргументы

date_text (дата_как_текст): это аргумент даты указанной в ячейке в формате текста или результат какой-либо формулы в виде текста;

• для правильной работы функции, текст, который нам необходимо преобразовать в формулу важно указать в кавычках (прим. “01/01/2016”);
• если date_text это результат какого-либо вычисления, важно чтобы ячейка была в текстовом формате, для корректной работы функции.

Дополнительная информация

DATEVALUE (ДАТАЗНАЧ) возвращает числовое значение даты:

• Например: формула =DATEVALUE(“1/1/2014”) или =ДАТАЗНАЧ(“1/1/2014”) преобразует значение в число 41640, которое означает дату 1 января 2014 в формате даты.
• Если вы указываете дату без дня (прим. =DATEVALUE(“1/2014”) или =ДАТАЗНАЧ(“1/1/2014”), а только месяц и год, система вернет числовое значение даты как первого дня указанного месяца — 41640, что для Excel будет означать как 01.01.2014.
• Если вы не используете значение года (прим. =DATEVALUE(“01/04”) или =ДАТАЗНАЧ(“01/04”), Excel автоматически присвоит текущий год (указанный в настройках даты и времени вашей ОС).
• Формат значения даты, которую выдает функция, зависит от настроек вашей ОС. Например в России (по умолчанию) при преобразовании даты 01/03/2016 это будет 1 Марта 2016, в США это 3 Января 2016.

Примеры использования функции DATEVALUE (ДАТАЗНАЧ)

Пример №1. Преобразование даты в текстовом формате в число

В приведенном выше примере, формула возвращает числовое значение даты введенной в кавычках. Введенная дата должна быть в текстовом формате, иначе Excel возвращает “#VALUE!” ошибку.

Обратите внимание, что значение, возвращаемое функцией зависит от настройки часов вашей системы. Если дата указана в формате ДД-ММ-ГГГГ значит «01-06-2016» будет отображать как 1 июня 2016 года, но для формата даты ММ-ДД-ГГГГ дата будет отображаться как 6 января 2016.

Пример №2. Преобразование даты в текстовом формате с помощью формулы

Когда дата введена как текст в ячейку, вы можете использовать функцию DATAVALUE (ДАТАЗНАЧ), чтобы получить числовое значение даты. Обратите внимание, что дата должна быть в текстовом формате.

В приведенном выше примере, формула преобразует “1-6-16” и “1-июня-16” — это значение указанное в формате даты.

Эта функция полезна, когда у вас есть дата в текстовом формате, по которой вы хотите фильтровать, сортировать данные в таблице. В текстовом формате, вы не сможете сортировать даты и проводить вычисления в Excel, так как система будет рассматривать его как текст, а не число.

Пример №3. Использование функции без указания года

Если значение года не указано, то система использует текущий год при отображении значения даты (текущий год 2016 в указанном примере).

Пример №4. Использование функции без указания дня

Если в дате не указан день, то формула использует первый день месяца.

В приведенных выше примерах, когда мы вводим число «6-16», система возвращает число 42522, которое является значением даты на 1 июня 2016 года.

Bottom line: With Valentine’s Day rapidly approaching I thought it would be good to explain how you can get a date with your Excel skills.  Just kidding! 🙂  This post and video explain how the date calendar system works in Excel.

Skill level: Beginner

Dates in Excel can be just as complicated as your date for Valentine’s Day.  We are going to stick with dates in Excel for this article because I’m not qualified to give any other type of dating advice. 🙂

Video Tutorial on How Dates Work in Excel

The following is a video from The Ultimate Lookup Formulas Course on how the date system works in Excel.

Watch the Video on YouTube

There are over 100 short videos just like the one above included in the Ultimate Lookup Formulas Course.

This course has been designed to help you master Excel’s most important functions and formulas in an easy step-by-step manner.

The Ultimate Lookup Formulas course is now part of our comprehensive Elevate Excel Training Program.

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What is a Date in Excel?

I should first make it clear that I am referring to a date that is stored in a cell.

The dates in Excel are actually stored as numbers, and then formatted to display the date.  The default date format for US dates is “m/d/yyyy” (1/27/2016).

The dates are referred to as serial numbers in Excel.  You will see this in some of the date functions like DAY(), MONTH(), YEAR(), etc.

So then, what is a serial number?  Well let’s start from the beginning.

The date calendar in Excel starts on January 1st, 1900.  As far as Excel is concerned this day starts the beginning of time.

Each Day is a Whole Number

Each day is represented by one whole number in Excel.  Type a 1 in any cell and then format it as a date.  You will get 1/1/1900.  The first day of the calendar system.

Type a 2 in a cell and format it as a date.  You will get 1/2/1900, or January 2nd.  This means that one whole day is represented by one whole number is Excel.

You can also take a cell that contains a date and format it as a number.

For example, this post was published on 1/27/2016.  Put that number in a cell (the keyboard shortcut to enter today’s date is Ctrl+;), and then format it as a number or General.

You will see the number 42,396.  This is the number of days that have elapsed since 1/1/1900.

Date Based Calculations

It is important to know that dates are stored as the number of days that have elapsed since the beginning of Excel’s calendar system (1/1/1900).

When you calculate the difference between two dates by subtraction, the result will be the number of days between the two dates.

1/27/2016 – 1/1/2016 = 26 days

6/30/2016 – 1/1/2016 = 181 days

There are a lot of Date functions in Excel that can help with these calculations.  Last week we learned about the DAY function for month-to-date calculations with pivot tables.

We won’t go into all the date functions here, but understanding that the serial number represents one day will give you a good foundation for working with dates.

What About Dates with Times?

Do you ever work with dates that contain time values?

These dates are still stored as serial numbers in Excel.  When you convert the date with a time to the number format, you will see a decimal number.

This decimal is a fraction of the day.

One hour in Excel is represented by the number: 1/24 = 0.04167

One minute in Excel is represented by the number: 1/(24*60) = 1/1440 = 0.000694

So 8:30 AM can be calculated as: (8 * (1/24)) + (30 * (1/1440)) = .354167

An easier way to calculate this is by typing 8:30 AM in a cell, then changing the format to Number.

So if you are running a half hour late and want to let your boss know, text him/her and say you will be there at 0.354167. 🙂

Checkout my article on 3 ways to group times in Excel for more date time based calculations.

Don’t Talk About Excel Dates with Your Date

Unless your Valentine shares a similar passion for Excel, I strongly recommend NOT sharing this information on your date.

I remember the first time I met my wife, and told her I worked in finance.  The first word out of her mouth was, “BORING!”.  Awe… it was love at first sight… LOL 🙂

But you should now be able to use Excel to determine how many days it has been since you last spoke to your date.  That’s the only dating advice I can give.

Please leave a comment below with any questions on Excel dates.  Thanks!

The DATEVALUE function serves a simple purpose. It converts a date written as a text string into a serial number that Excel can recognize. While it looks (and indeed is) pretty straightforward, the DATEVALUE function provides powerful ammunition for converting dates, which consequently enables us to manipulate them with formulas and pivot tables.

This is especially helpful when you are importing data from external sources because it is quite likely that Excel will convert date entries into text strings upon importing. To remedy this, we will use the Excel DATEVALUE function and convert the text strings into Excel-recognized serial numbers representing dates.

Syntax

The syntax of the DATEVALUE function is as follows:

=DATEVALUE("date_text")

Arguments:

date_text – This is the only argument required. The supplied value should be a text string containing a valid date.

Before we dive deeper, let’s address a fundamental concept that forms the basis of the DATEVALUE function.

How does Excel store dates internally?

Since dates can be written in several formats, there has to be some sort of standardization that is understandable across worksheets. If you try to manipulate two dates in a worksheet, one with a DD/MM/YYYY format and another with MM/DD/YYYY format – will it still work? Yes! Because Excel stores these dates as a serial number.

This is precisely where the DATEVALUE function enters the scene. If you have dates enlisted in a column as text strings (not dates as far as Excel can tell), you will need the DATEVALUE function to convert those into serial numbers, so Excel knows that these are dates and not just text strings.

Important characteristics of the DATEVALUE function

• The date_text argument must always be enclosed in quotes unless supplied as a cell reference.
• If the referenced cell does not contain a date that is formatted as a text string, the formula will return a #VALUE! error.
• If you do not use a 4 digit number for a year in a date, Excel will make the following assumption:
  • Entered number lies between 0 and 29: Excel will assume the year as 2000 to 2029.
  • Entered number lies between 30 and 99: Excel will assume the year as 1930 to 1999.
• If you do not enter a year altogether, Excel will default to the current year as reflected in your computer’s time and date setup.

Examples of the DATEVALUE function

Now let’s have a look at some of the examples of the DATEVALUE function in Excel.

Example 1 – The plain-vanilla DATEVALUE formula

Let’s start by looking at the DATEVALUE formula in its simplest form. We have a list of dates written as a text string, and we need that converted into serial numbers that Excel can appropriately interpret as dates. To accomplish this, we will use the following formula:

=DATEVALUE(A2)

Note that we could have just as well used a text string like “05-20-2005” instead of referencing the cell and achieved the same result.

In our example, we first use the formula to fetch the serial number of the dates. Once we have the serial numbers, all we need to do is change the cell format to “Short Date” or “Long Date” depending on your preference. You can select the format from the drop-down menu in the “Number” group under the “Home” tab in Excel.

Example 2 – DATEVALUE function with Imported Data

Let’s say you pulled the data set off a website, and you now have that data in a PDF or CSV format.

You import the data set into Excel, and it gives you a separate column for each component of a date (month, day, and year).

What you want is a date that Excel recognizes so that you can plug that in or reference it anywhere on your worksheet.

To deal with this, we will use the following formula:

=DATEVALUE(CONCAT(A2, "/",B2, "/", C2))

In the above formula, we have used the CONCAT function to combine the different parts of the date and then passed the result to the DATEVALUE function. It’s that simple!

Example 3 – DATEVALUE function combined with TIMEVALUE function

Scroll back up to our first example and look at the image. Do you see how the last row includes time, but the formula ignores it and returns just the date?

Well, what if time was a critical component of my data? What if I also want to include time in my return?

To do this, we have to use the TIMEVALUE function along with the DATEVALUE function. DATEVALUE function only fetches the date part from the input string even though the input string has the date as well as time. On the other hand, the TIMEVALUE function takes only the time part from the supplied DateTime.

We can combine both these functions as:

=DATEVALUE(A2)+TIMEVALUE(A2)

In the first part of the formula, we are extracting the date from the text string, with the help of DATEVALUE function. Using the same logic, in the second part of the formula, we are fetching the time from the text string.

By adding both these parts we are left with a decimal number, where the part before decimal represents the DATE in numeric format and the part after decimal represents the TIME in numeric format.

Be sure to format the output cells appropriately, so they show the date as well as the time.

Recommended Reading: Remove Time From Date In Excel

Not sure how to format cells for the DATEVALUE function?

Take a deep breath, we have you covered.

We know that Excel stores a date as a serial number, and for the same reason, the DATEVALUE function will always return a serial number.

To display it as a date, we must format that cell to show our preferred date format. When you have a serial number in a cell, right-click on the cell and choose “Format Cells”.

That should open up the following dialog box:

That is pretty much it. All you have to do now is choose your preferred format. If you want to display the time, be sure to choose a format that includes the time component.

That wraps up our discussion on the DATEVALUE function. I hope the next time you see an overwhelmingly long list of dates imported as text, you will know how to use the DATEVALUE function to deal with it. When you finish practicing, come back here, and we will talk about a new Excel function.