Putting a Different Date in a Header

Summary: Today's date is easy to add to a header, but what if you want to add a date that is adjusted in some manner? Adding yesterday's date or tomorrow's date, for instance, is easy if you use the macro provided in this tip. (This tip works with Microsoft Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, Excel 2003, and Excel 2007.)

Adding the current date to the header of a worksheet is easy—Excel provides a dialog box where you can specify the placement of the date and use the '&[date]' coding to actually insert the date. But what if you want to insert yesterday's date or tomorrow's date into the header?

That's not nearly as easy. In fact, you can't do it without using a macro. Perhaps the most flexible approach is to write the macro so that it updates the date just before the worksheet is printed, as shown in the following:

Private Sub Workbook_BeforePrint(Cancel As Boolean)
  ActiveSheet.PageSetup.CenterHeader = _
    Format(Date - 1, "mmmm d, yyyy")
End Sub

The macro places yesterday's date into the center of the header; you can easily change the CenterHeader property of one of the other available header locations (LeftHeader or RightHeader). You can also change the macro to insert tomorrow's date by changing the "- 1" to "+ 1".

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3377) applies to Microsoft Excel versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

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