Date and time functions are essential for managing schedules, tracking timelines, and performing date-specific calculations in spreadsheets. These functions allow you to manipulate date and time data efficiently, enabling dynamic date entries, creating dates from components, and calculating intervals between dates.

TODAY & NOW: Inserting the Current Date and Time

The TODAY function returns the current date, and NOW returns the current date and time. These functions are useful for adding timestamps to entries and calculating age or durations from a specific date.

Formula (TODAY): =TODAY()

Result: Current Date (e.g., 2024-03-07)

Formula (NOW): =NOW()

Result: Current Date and Time (e.g., 2024-03-07 12:34:56)

These functions do not require any arguments and automatically update every time the spreadsheet recalculates.

DATE: Creating a Date from Year, Month, and Day

The DATE function is used to combine individual year, month, and day components into a date. It's particularly useful when you have these components in separate cells or need to calculate a date based on other data.

Example Data:

    A    B    C
1  2024  3    7

 

Formula: =DATE(A1, B1, C1)

Result: 2024-03-07

This formula creates a date from the year in cell A1, the month in cell B1, and the day in cell C1.

DATEDIF: Calculating the Difference Between Two Dates

The DATEDIF function calculates the difference between two dates. It can return the number of days, months, or years between the dates, making it invaluable for age calculations, service durations, and more.

Example Data:

    D          E
1  2020-01-01  2024-03-07

Formula (Years): =DATEDIF(D1, E1, "Y")

Result: 4

Formula (Months): =DATEDIF(D1, E1, "M")

Result: 50

Formula (Days): =DATEDIF(D1, E1, "D")

Result: 1526

These formulas calculate the number of years, months, and days between January 1, 2020, and March 7, 2024, respectively.

Understanding and utilizing these date and time functions can significantly streamline the management of dates within your spreadsheets, from basic date entries to complex calculations involving time intervals. By applying these functions, you can automate and accurately handle any date and time-related data tasks.

Date and Time Functions

• TODAY & NOW: Inserting the current date and time.
• DATE: Creating a date from year, month, and day.
• DATEDIF: Calculating the difference between two dates.