Write dates in excel

When you type a date or time in a cell, it appears in a default date and time format. This default format is based on the regional date and time settings that are specified in Control Panel, and changes when you adjust those settings in Control Panel. You can display numbers in several other date and time formats, most of which are not affected by Control Panel settings.

In this article

• Display numbers as dates or times

• Create a custom date or time format

• Tips for displaying dates or times

Display numbers as dates or times

You can format dates and times as you type. For example, if you type 2/2 in a cell, Excel automatically interprets this as a date and displays 2-Feb in the cell. If this isn’t what you want—for example, if you would rather show February 2, 2009 or 2/2/09 in the cell—you can choose a different date format in the Format Cells dialog box, as explained in the following procedure. Similarly, if you type 9:30 a or 9:30 p in a cell, Excel will interpret this as a time and display 9:30 AM or 9:30 PM. Again, you can customize the way the time appears in the Format Cells dialog box.

1. On the Home tab, in the Number group, click the Dialog Box Launcher next to Number.

   

   You can also press CTRL+1 to open the Format Cells dialog box.

2. In the Category list, click Date or Time.

   

3. In the Type list, click the date or time format that you want to use.

   Note: Date and time formats that begin with an asterisk (*) respond to changes in regional date and time settings that are specified in Control Panel. Formats without an asterisk are not affected by Control Panel settings.

4. To display dates and times in the format of other languages, click the language setting that you want in the Locale (location) box.

   

   The number in the active cell of the selection on the worksheet appears in the Sample box so that you can preview the number formatting options that you selected.

   

Top of Page

Create a custom date or time format

1. On the Home tab, click the Dialog Box Launcher next to Number.

   

   You can also press CTRL+1 to open the Format Cells dialog box.

2. In the Category box, click Date or Time, and then choose the number format that is closest in style to the one you want to create. (When creating custom number formats, it’s easier to start from an existing format than it is to start from scratch.)

3. In the Category box, click Custom. In the Type box, you should see the format code matching the date or time format you selected in the step 3. The built-in date or time format can’t be changed or deleted, so don’t worry about overwriting it.

4. In the Type box, make the necessary changes to the format. You can use any of the codes in the following tables:

   Days, months, and years    

To display	Use this code
Months as 1–12	m
Months as 01–12	mm
Months as Jan–Dec	mmm
Months as January–December	mmmm
Months as the first letter of the month	mmmmm
Days as 1–31	d
Days as 01–31	dd
Days as Sun–Sat	ddd
Days as Sunday–Saturday	dddd
Years as 00–99	yy
Years as 1900–9999	yyyy

If you use «m» immediately after the «h» or «hh» code or immediately before the «ss» code, Excel displays minutes instead of the month.

Hours, minutes, and seconds

To display	Use this code
Hours as 0–23	h
Hours as 00–23	hh
Minutes as 0–59	m
Minutes as 00–59	mm
Seconds as 0–59	s
Seconds as 00–59	ss
Hours as 4 AM	h AM/PM
Time as 4:36 PM	h:mm AM/PM
Time as 4:36:03 P	h:mm:ss A/P
Elapsed time in hours; for example, 25.02	[h]:mm
Elapsed time in minutes; for example, 63:46	[mm]:ss
Elapsed time in seconds	[ss]
Fractions of a second	h:mm:ss.00

AM and PM     If the format contains an AM or PM, the hour is based on the 12-hour clock, where «AM» or «A» indicates times from midnight until noon and «PM» or «P» indicates times from noon until midnight. Otherwise, the hour is based on the 24-hour clock. The «m» or «mm» code must appear immediately after the «h» or «hh» code or immediately before the «ss» code; otherwise, Excel displays the month instead of minutes.

Creating custom number formats can be tricky if you haven’t done it before. For more information about how to create custom number formats, see Create or delete a custom number format.

Top of Page

Tips for displaying dates or times

• To quickly use the default date or time format, click the cell that contains the date or time, and then press CTRL+SHIFT+# or CTRL+SHIFT+@.

• If a cell displays ##### after you apply date or time formatting to it, the cell probably isn’t wide enough to display the data. To expand the column width, double-click the right boundary of the column containing the cells. This automatically resizes the column to fit the number. You can also drag the right boundary until the columns are the size you want.

• When you try to undo a date or time format by selecting General in the Category list, Excel displays a number code. When you enter a date or time again, Excel displays the default date or time format. To enter a specific date or time format, such as January 2010, you can format it as text by selecting Text in the Category list.

• To quickly enter the current date in your worksheet, select any empty cell, and then press CTRL+; (semicolon), and then press ENTER, if necessary. To insert a date that will update to the current date each time you reopen a worksheet or recalculate a formula, type =TODAY() in an empty cell, and then press ENTER.

Need more help?

You can always ask an expert in the Excel Tech Community or get support in the Answers community.

In Microsoft Excel, the date can be inserted in a variety of ways, including using a built-in function formula or manually entering the date, such as 22/03/2021, 22-Mar-21, 22-Mar, or March 22, 2021. These date functions are typically used for cash flows in accounting and financial analysis.

In Excel, there is a built-in function called TODAY() that will insert the exact today’s date and will give the updated date whenever the workbook is opened. The NOW() built-in function can also be used to insert the current date and time, and this function will be kept up to date if we open the workbook multiple times.

Inserting the date:

In the Formula tab, the built-in TODAY is categorized under the DATE/TIME function.

 Alternate to insert the date in Excel the below keyboard shortcut can be used:

CTRL+; 

It will insert the current date.

To insert the current date and time we can use the following shortcut keys:

CTRL+; <space key> CTRL+SHIFT+;

It returns the current date and time to us.

1. Inserting specific date in Excel:

We have to use DATE() to insert a specific valid date in Excel. We can notice in the above function that the DATE requests to provide Year, Month, Day values. If we provide the details, the default date will be shown as below:

2. Inserting static date and time: 

A static value in a sheet does not change if the sheet is recalculated or opened. To do so follow the below steps:

Step 1: Select the cell in which the current date or time will be inserted on a table.

Step 2: Do one of the next:

• Press Ctrl+;(semi-colon) to insert your current date.
• Press the Ctrl+Shift+;(semi-colon) to insert the current time.
• Press Ctrl+;(semi-column) to insert the current date and time then press Space, and press Ctrl+Shift+; (semi-colon).

3. Inserting a date in Excel via a drop-down calendar:

It may be a good idea to include a down calendar in your worksheet if you set up a table for other users and want to make sure that the dates enter correctly. You can fill in the dates with a mouse click and be 100% confident that all dates are entered in a suitable format. You can use Microsoft Date Picker control when you use a 32-bit version of Excel. Microsoft Date Picker Control will not work when you are using a 64-bit Excel 2016, Excel 2013 version.

4. Inserting an automatically updatable today’s date and current time:

If you want to keep your Excel date up-to-date today, use one of the following Excel date functions:

=TODAY() -> inserts in a cell the current date.
=NOW() -> inserts in a cell the current and current date.

Please remember that when using the Excel date functions:

1. The date and the time returned will not be refreshed on an ongoing basis, but only when the chain is reopened or re-calculated.
2. The functions take the current system clock date and time.

5. Auto-populate dates in Excel

To autofill a series of dates in which one day is incremented, you can use the Excel AutoFill function. It is a common way to automatically fill a column or row. To do so follow the below steps:

• Enter the original date in the first cell.
• Click the first date on your cell and then drag the fill handle to or from the cells you want Excel to add dates.

Autofill weekdays, months, or years:

There are two ways of automatically adding weekdays, months, or years to the selected range of cells. To so follow the below steps:

1. You can use the above-mentioned Excel AutoFill options. Click the AutoFill Options icon and choose the option you want when the range is populated by sequential dates.
2. Another way to enter your first date will be to right-click the fill handle and drag and release the fill handle through the cells you automatically want to fill with dates. Excel displays a context menu and selects the appropriate option.

See all How-To Articles

This tutorial covers how to insert dates in Excel.

The Date Format

Like numbers, currency, time and others, the date is a quintessential number format in Excel.

Though Excel tries its best to auto-recognize data types, it doesn’t always succeed. To manually apply the date format to a cell or group of cells, select the HOME menu, expand the Number dropdown and choose short or long date.

The difference between short and long date formats is that the latter includes the weekday.
Warning! Applying the date format to inappropriate data will give unexpected results!

If you would like to change the default format of the date, with the order of month, day and year, select “More Number Formats..” under the Number dropdown.

At the bottom of the dropdown, More Number Formats allows you to customize the order of the elements in the date. You can also choose a particular date format based on your location.

Note: The location options must be compatible with the language of your machine.

Today’s Date

To insert today’s date, there are two primary functions: NOW() and TODAY(). The former also includes the current time.

To change the order of the resulting date, follow the steps mentioned earlier to customize the format.

Shortcut: You can also use shortcut “CTRL + ; “ for TODAY() and “CTRL + SHIFT + ;” for NOW().

Auto Populate Dates

Excel treats dates and numbers in almost the same way. Because dates are implemented as serial numbers, you can perform arithmetic operations with them such as auto-populating.

Just as you would auto-populate cells with numbers, select a cell with a date and drag the fill handle through the cells you want to fill.

The example demonstrates how to fill cells by day increments, but you can also increment by week, month and year. Just follow the same steps that you would to fill cells by day increments, and then select the icon at the bottom right next to the fill handle. On the dropdown list, choose your increment.

Fill Dates by Custom Interval

You might want to fill dates and increment by an amount other than one unit of time.

To fill cells with dates by every N number of days, first perform the steps as you would to autofill dates normally. Then in the editing section of the HOME menu, click Fill then Series.

In the dialog box, select “Linear” and under “Step value”, provide the desired increment.

Result: The dates will be auto filled every three days.

Create a Date from Separate Columns

If you happen to work with Excel data where the year, month and day are in separate columns, you can use the DATE function to merge them into one date.

DATE(YEAR, MONTH, DAY)

Note: Months have to be in numeric form.

What is a date in Excel?

A date is a number! And like any number (currency, percentage, decimal, …), you can customize your date format 👍

Dates are whole numbers

Usually, when you insert a date in a cell it is displayed in the format dd/mm/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy.

Let’s say you have the date 01/01/2016 in a cell. If you change the cell’s format to Standard, the cell displays 42370 😕🤔

Explanation of the numbering

In Excel, a date is the number of days since 01/01/1900 (the first date in Excel).

So 42370 is the number of days between 01/01/1900 and 01/01/2016.

Date format

Dates can be displayed in different ways using the following 2 options (available in the Number Format dropdown in the main menu):

• Short Date
• Long Date

How to customize a date?

To customize a date:

1. Open the dialog box Custom Number (with the shortcut Ctrl + 1 or by clicking on the menu More number formats at the bottom of the number format dropdown)

1. In this dialog box, you select ‘Custom‘ in the Category list and write the date format code in ‘Type‘.

To format a date, you just write the parameter d, m or y a different number of times. For example,

• dd/mm/yyyy will display 01/01/2016
• dd mmm yyyy => 01 Jan 2016
• mmmm yyyy => January 2016
• dddd dd => Friday 01

In function of your language , the letter could be different:

• t for «tag» (day) in German
• j for «jour» (day) in French
• a for «año» (year) in Spanish

Don’t write text in your cell !!!

With dates, one of the most common mistakes is to write text inside the format code (1 January 2016 for example). Never do this in Excel ⛔⛔⛔

If you do this, the contents of the cell will be Text and not a number

• In Excel, text is always displayed on the left of a cell.
• A number or a date is displayed on the right.

If you want to display the month in letters, just change the month format of your date.

Different examples of custom date

The following document shows you the same date but in different formats. The code for each date is in column A.

Different writing of dates according to the format code

In the following document, you can see the impact of each format on the same date.

Dates and times are two of the most common data types people work with in Excel, but they are also possibly the most frustrating to work with, especially if you are new to Excel and still learning. This is because Excel uses a serial number to represent the date instead of a proper month, day, or year, nevermind hours, minutes, or seconds. It’s made more complicated by the fact that dates are also days of the week, like Monday or Friday, even though Excel doesn’t explicitly store that information in the cells. Here is the definitive guide to working with dates and times in Excel…

How Excel Stores Dates

The source of most of the confusion around dates and times in Excel comes from the way that the program stores the information. You’d expect it to remember the month, the day, and the year for dates, but that’s not how it works…

Excel stores dates as a serial number that represents the number of days that have taken place since the beginning of the year 1900. This means that January 1, 1900 is really just a 1. January 2, 1900 is 2. By the time we get all the way to the present decade, the numbers have gotten pretty big… September 10, 2013 is stored as 41527.

Importantly, any date before January 1, 1900 is not recognized as a date in Excel. There are no “negative” date serial numbers on the number line.

It seems confusing, but it makes it a lot easier to add, subtract, and count days. A week from September 10, 2013 (September 17, 2013), is just 41527 + 7 days, or 41534.

How Excel Stores Times

Excel stores times using the exact same serial numbering format as with dates. Days start at midnight (12:00am or 0:00 hours). Since each hour is 1/24 of a day, it is represented as that decimal value: 0.041666…

That means that 9:00am (09:00 hours) on September 10, 2013 will be stored as 41527.375.

When a time is specified without a date, Excel stores it as if it occurred on January 0, 1900. In other words, 3:00pm (15:00 hours) is stored as 0.625. This can make doing math for time-only values (that have no date) challenging, since subtracting 6 hours (6:00)  from 3:00am (03:00 hours) will become negative and count as an error: 0.125 – 0.25 = -0.125, which is displayed as #########.

Minutes and seconds in Excel work the same way as hours…

A minute is 1/60 of an hour, which is 1/24 of a day, or 1/1440 of a day in total, which calculates to 0.00069444…

A second is 1/60 of an minute, which is 1/60 of an hour, which is 1/24 of a day, or 1/86400 of a day in total, which calculates to 0.00001157407…

Working with Dates and Times

DATE() and TIME()

Serial numbers aren’t all that intuitive to use. Fortunately, Excel has a set of functions to make it easier to find and use dates and times, starting with DATE and TIME. The syntax is as follows:

=DATE(year, month, day)

=TIME(hours, minutes, seconds)

For both functions, specify the year, month, and day, or hours, minutes, and seconds as numbers. For example, September 10, 2013 can be entered as:

=DATE(2013,9,10)

It will be stored as 41527, which means that it is technically storing 12:00am on September 10, 2013.

For times, 6:00pm (18:00 hours) can be entered as:

=TIME(18,0,0)

It will be stored as 0.75, which means that it is technically storing 6:00pm on January 0, 1900.

If we want to represent a specific time and date, we can add the two functions together. For example, 6:00pm (18:00 hours) on September 10, 2013 can be entered as:

=DATE(2013,9,10)+TIME(18,0,0)

It will be calculate as 41527.75, which means Excel is storing exactly the date we want…

Additional Date and Time Setting Functions

Excel has a few additional functions to make declaring dates easier.

TODAY()

The TODAY function always returns the current date’s serial number. The TODAY function is just entered as:

=TODAY()

This article was written at 6:30pm (18:30 hours) on September 24, 2013, and the TODAY function calculated to 41541.  That means that it is technically storing 12:00am on September 24, 2013.

NOW()

A similar function called NOW always returns the current date and time’s serial number. The NOW function is just entered as:

=NOW()

Again,  at 6:30pm (18:30 hours) on September 24, 2013, the function calculated to 41541.77081333… NOW stores the exact time and date, down to the second.

EDATE() and EOMONTH()

The EDATE function gives the date the specified number of months away from the input date. The EOMONTH function gives the date of the last day of the month. It can do so for the current month or a number of months in the future or the past. The syntax for each is as follows:

=EDATE(start_date, months)

=EOMONTH(start_date, months)

The start_date can be any date-formatted cell reference or date serial number.

The months field can be any number, though only the integer value will be used (e.g. it treats 2.8 as 2).

The EDATE and EOMONTH functions strip the time value from the date. For example, For example, if cell A1 stores September 10, 2013, we can get the value 2 months ahead as follows:

=EDATE(A1,2)

Returns 12:00am (0:00 hours) on November 10, 2013, or 41588. This function works even though the months have different numbers of days (September and November have 30, October has 31).

=EOMONTH(A1,2)

Returns 12:00am (0:00 hours) on November 30, 2013, or 41588. Again, this function works even though the months have different numbers of days.

WORKDAY()

Occasionally, it may be useful to count ahead based on work-days (Monday-Friday) instead of all 7 days of the week… For that, Excel has provided WORKDAY. The syntax for WORKDAY is as follows:

=WORKDAY(start_date, days, [holidays])

The start_date is as above.

The days input is the number of workdays ahead (or behind) of the present day you would like to move.

The [holidays] input is optional, but lets you disqualify specific days (like Thanksgiving or Christmas, for example), which might otherwise fall during the work week. These are date serial numbers provided in an array bounded by brackets: { }. To specify multiple holidays, the dates must be held in cells – it is not possible to put multiple DATE functions in an array.

For example, let’s find the date 6 work days before 6:00pm (18:00 hours) on September 10, 2013 (stored in cell A1). Monday, September 2nd is Labor Day, so let’s include that as a holiday:

=WORKDAY(A1,-6,DATE(2013,9,2))

Returns 12:00am (0:00 hours) on August 30, 2013, or 41516. (Note that the function strips the time portion of the date.)

WORKDAY.INTL() (Excel 2010 and newer)

For newer versions of Excel (2010 and later), there is another version of WORKDAY called WORKDAY.INTL. WORKDAY.INTL works just like WORKDAY, but it adds the ability to customize the definition of the “weekend”. The syntax for WORKDAY.INTL is as follows:

=WORKDAY.INTL(start_date, days, [weekend], [holidays])

The start_date, days, and [holidays] inputs work just like the normal WORKDAY function.

The [weekend] input has the following options:

Retrieving Dates in Excel

DAY(), MONTH(), and YEAR()

Now we know how define dates, but we still need to be able to work with them. Serial numbers don’t make it easy to extract months, years, and days, nevermind hours, minutes, and seconds. That’s why Excel has specific functions for pulling out each of these values. For working with the calendar, there is DAY, MONTH, and YEAR. The syntax is simple:

=DAY(serial_number)

=MONTH(serial_number)

=YEAR(serial_number)

The serial_number in each can be any date-formatted cell reference. For example, if cell A1 stores September 10, 2013, we can use each of the formulas in turn:

=DAY(A1)

Returns 10 as a numeric value.

=MONTH(A1)

Returns 9 as a numeric value.

=YEAR(A1)

Returns 2013 as a numeric value.

We could have also given the direct serial number for September 10, 2013:

=DAY(41527)

Returns 10 as a numeric value.

Retrieving Times in Excel

HOUR(), MINUTE(), and SECOND()

For times, the process is very similar. Excel has function to retrieve the hours, minutes, and seconds from a time stamp, conveniently named HOUR, MINUTE, and SECOND. The syntax is identical:

=HOUR(serial_number)

=MINUTE(serial_number)

=SECOND(serial_number)

The serial_number in each can be any time/date-formatted cell reference. For example, if A1 stores 6:15:30pm (18:15 hours, 30 seconds) on September 10, 2013, we can use each of the formulas in turn:

=HOUR(A1)

Returns 18 as a numeric value.

=MINUTE(A1)

Returns 15 as a numeric value.

=SECOND(A1)

Returns 30 as a numeric value.

We could have also given the direct serial number for  6:15:30pm (18:15 hours, 30 seconds) on September 10, 2013:

=SECOND(41527.7607638889)

Returns 30 as a numeric value.

Additional Date Retrieving Functions

WEEKDAY() and WEEKNUM()

Dates don’t just have month and year information. They also encode indirect information… September 10, 2013 happens to also be a Tuesday. Excel has a few of functions to work with the week aspect of dates: WEEKDAY and WEEKNUM. The syntax is as follows:

=WEEKDAY(serial_number, [return_type])

=WEEKNUM(serial_number, [return_type])

The serial_number in each can be any date-formatted cell reference. Since [return_type] is optional, each function assumes that each week starts on Sunday. If cell A1 stores September 10, 2013 (a Tuesday), we can use each of the formulas in turn:

=WEEKDAY(A1)

Returns 3, since Tuesday is the 3rd day of a week that starts on Sunday.

=WEEKNUM(A1)

Returns 37, since September 10, 2013 is in the 37th week of 2013, when you start counting weeks from Sunday.

The [return_type] allows you to specify a different default week arrangement. You could let the week start on Monday and run until Sunday, or Saturday until Friday, for example. Excel is annoying, however, and makes the entry different for WEEKDAY and WEEKNUM. The full list of options for WEEKDAY is as follows:

Options 2 and 11 are functionally the same – the first is just there for backwards compatibility with earlier versions of Excel.

The full list of options for WEEKNUM is as follows:

Counting and Tracking Dates

Dates can be added and subtracted like normal numbers because they’re stored as serial numbers. That lets you count the days between two different dates. Sometimes, though, you need to count by a different metric.

NETWORKDAYS()

Above, we learned about WORKDAY, which lets you move back and forth a set number of workdays, ignoring weekends and holidays. But what if you need to measure the number of workdays between two dates? For that, Excel provides NETWORKDAYS. The formula syntax is as follows:

=NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date, [holidays])

The start_date and end_date can be any date-formatted cell reference.

The [holidays] input is optional, but lets you disqualify specific days (like Thanksgiving or Christmas, for example), which might otherwise fall during the work week. These are date serial numbers provided in an array bounded by brackets: { }. To specify multiple holidays, the dates must be held in cells – it is not possible to put multiple DATE functions in an array.

For example, if A1 contains 6:00pm (18:00 hours) on September 10, 2013 and B1 contains 9:00am (9:00 hours) on December 2, 2013, we can use NETWORKDAYS to find the number of workdays between the two dates.

Let’s exclude Columbus Day (October 14, 2013), Veterans Day (November 11, 2013), and Thanksgiving Day (November 28, 2013) as holidays. To do so, we have to store those dates in other cells. Let’s put them in C1, C2, and C3:

=DATE(2013,10,14)

=DATE(2013,11,11)

=DATE(2013,11,28)

Now, we can combine them in the function:

=NETWORKDAYS(A1,B1,C1:C3)

The function returns 57 as a numeric value.

NETWORKDAYS.INTL() (Excel 2010 and newer)

For newer versions of Excel (2010 and later), there is another version of NETWORKDAYS called NETWORKDAYS.INTL. NETWORKDAYS.INTL works just like NETWORKDAYS, but it adds the ability to customize the definition of the “weekend”. The syntax for NETWORKDAYS.INTL is as follows:

=NETWORKDAYS.INTL(start_date, end_date, [weekend], [holidays])

The start_date, end_date, and [holidays] inputs work just like the normal WORKDAY function.

The [weekend] input has the following options:

YEARFRAC()

Sometimes it’s useful to measure how much time has passed in years, but subtracting the YEAR function will only round down to the nearest full year. YEARFRAC takes two dates and provides the portion of the year between them. The syntax is as follows:

=YEARFRAC(start_date, end_date, [basis])

The start_date and end_date can be any date-formatted cell reference.

The [basis] input is optional, but lets you specify the “rules” for measuring the difference. Most of the time, you’ll want to use option 1, but here is the full list:

For example, if A1 contains September 10, 2013 and B1 contains December 2, 2013, we can use YEARFRAC to find the decimal portion of a year between the two dates:

=YEARFRAC(A1,B1,1)

Returns 0.227397260273973.

DATEDIF() (Undocumented Function)

The YEARFRAC function gives you the difference between dates as a fraction of a year, but sometimes you need more control. There is a powerful hidden function in Excel called DATEDIF that can do much more. It can tell you the number of years, months, or days between two dates. It can also track based on only partial inputs, ignoring years or months when calculating days. The syntax for DATEDIF is as follows:

=DATEDIF(start_date, end_date, unit)

The start_date and end_date can be any date-formatted cell reference.

The unit input asks you to specify a string that represents the type of output you want. This is slightly cumbersome, since you must wrap the input in quotes (” “).

For example, if A1 contains September 10, 2012 and B1 contains December 2, 2013, we can use DATEDIF to find the number of full years between the two dates:

=DATEDIF(A1,B1,"Y")

Returns 1 as a numeric value.

Using the same start_date and end_date inputs, here are the output possibilities for DATEDIF using different unit parameters:

Every time, the unit must be put in quotes (e.g. “Y” or “MD”).

Converting Dates and Times from Text

DATEVALUE() and TIMEVALUE()

All of the above functions work perfectly with date-formatted serial numbers in Excel. Unfortunately, dates and times are often imported into worksheets as text. Most of the assorted functions like MONTH and HOUR are reasonably intelligent about converting on the fly. Occasionally it’s useful to build a date value through concatenation. The two functions Excel provides for this purpose are DATEVALUE and TIMEVALUE. The syntax for each is as follows:

=DATEVALUE(date_text)

=TIMEVALUE(time_text)

The date_text and time_text accept any text string that looks like a date or time.

This is how DATEVALUE responds to various date_text inputs:

This is how TIMEVALUE responds to various time_text inputs:

Converting Dates and Times to Text

TEXT()

Getting data converted to dates and times is great, but you may also need to get it back out. Sometimes, you need a special format. Other times, you need to look for a date in a text string, and have to match using string tools like FIND and SEARCH. There is one master function for converting dates and times to text strings in Excel, called TEXT. The syntax for TEXT is as follows:

=TEXT(value, format_text)

The value can be any date or time-formatted cell reference.

The format_text input has a large number of options, summarized here:

The outputs can be combined with simple formatting characters to produce standard date formats. Using the date 5:07:03am (05:07 hours, 3 seconds) on September 10, 2013, here are examples of possible outputs:

A Common Problem

One issue people frequently run into is that Excel occasionally misinterprets text fields as dates. An example is here:

Be careful when entering dates, especially if you are importing from other data sources, to make sure that your “Jan-13” is being stored as January 1, 2013 and not January 13, 2013!

Other posts in this series…

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.

Click Here to Learn More About Elevate Excel

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!