Entering Dates manually or with Fx 1

[Stroppy]

Hi all,

I am learning about Formulas using Dates in excel. My MOUS manual has a simple example for calculating a payment due date (purchase date+ 30sdays). The manual says to enter the date using the Paste function method. I have tried it by entering the date directly and it still works. I note that the cell with the date entered directly simply shows the date in the formula bar, eg

=27/03/2001

whereas the date entered with the Fx method shows it's date as
=DATE(2001,4,2)

What difference does it make? Will it affect any other formulas? Is it important for other time/date functions to have the date entered the "complicated" way? I have read about serial numbers.....

Thank you in advance

M

 

[SkipVought]

Dates in Excel actually are numbers that look like 37345. It is the number of days since Jan 1, 1900.

Dates can be FORMATTED to look many different ways -- there are stock formats and custom formats.

A date formatted mm/dd/yy will look like 03/27/01
Or d-m-yyyy would liik like 27-3-2001
Or ddd mmm yyyy would look like Tue Mar 2001

endless possibilities

You format a date like a number in menu item Format/Cells/Number and select the Date category.

BTW, Time is part of date - Date is the INTEGER part and Time the fractional part based on 24 hours.

Hope this helps Skip,
Skip@TheOfficeExperts.com

http://www.TheOfficeExperts.com

 

[Stroppy]

Thanks Skip. But, my question still remains...or is it a non-issue? Can I just enter it straight in (and the serial number is underlying anyway) or is there an advantage to the Fx entry, which returns a different "format" in the formula bar?
M

 

[SkipVought]

Excel has some "smarts" that detects dates entered directly into cells and immediately converts what you entered into the appropriate number and formats the cell according to a default format. The format in the formula bar is by and large inconsequential to what you end up seeing on the sheet. I prefer taking advantage of the "shortcut"

Skip,
Skip@TheOfficeExperts.com

http://www.TheOfficeExperts.com

 

[Stroppy]

Thanks!