Forum Discussion
Format and calculating days between dates
I am trying to create a list of dates and calculate the days between the dates. I have tried to enter the date January 1, 2012 by entering 1/1/12 and it returns 1/1/2012. When I enter the next date...
I have a few steps to suggest to you;
Enter Dates in a Consistent Format: Enter your dates in the format "mm/dd/yyyy" (month/day/year) or "dd/mm/yyyy" (day/month/year) to avoid ambiguity. For example:
- January 1, 2012: Enter as 01/01/2012 or 1/1/2012
- March 31, 2012: Enter as 03/31/2012 or 31/3/2012
Use the DATE Function: If you're concerned about different interpretations of dates, you can also use the DATE function to explicitly specify the year, month, and day. For example:
- January 1, 2012: =DATE(2012, 1, 1)
- March 31, 2012: =DATE(2012, 3, 31)
Calculate Days Between Dates: To calculate the number of days between two dates, you should use the DAYS function correctly spelled as DAYS, not Days. So your formula should be:
=DAYS(A3, A2)
This formula calculates the number of days between the date in cell A3 and the date in cell A2.