Forum Discussion

asrobich's avatar
asrobich
Copper Contributor
May 15, 2020

Problem with DATEDIF function

Hi.  I'm trying to calculate the difference between two dates in Excel.  I have used the DATEDIF function to do this in the past, but it doesn't seem to be working correctly this time.  Instead of re...
excel
Riny_van_Eekelen's avatar
Riny_van_Eekelen
Platinum Contributor
May 15, 2020

Try formatting the result cell as General. Excel sees you are calculating with dates and thinks you want to display the result as a date as well. Dates are stored as numbers, so whatever the outcome of your formula is, it will get displayed as the date that is as many days after 1 January 1900.

 

By te way, DATEDIF is not needed for this kind of calculation. See attached example.

Dalal1310's avatar
Dalal1310
Copper Contributor
Aug 28, 2021

Riny_van_Eekelen Would =DATEDIF formula be the right formula to use if I need to calculate the age of my students in Years and Months on September1st? because I seem to have work on one excel file and not the other despite formatting the date cells as cells and the result cells as general or text. I was thinking maybe one excel file is older than the other but still I count make it work.

 

Please help!

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