Tips, Tricks, and Answers

The following articles are available for the 'Date and Time Functions' topic. Click the article''s title (shown in bold) to see the associated article.

   Automatically Advancing by a Month
Excel allows you to perform quite a few operations using dates in your worksheet. Sometimes, however, the answer may not be immediately obvious. For instance, if you want to perform an operation that always advances the date to the beginning of the next month once half the month has passed.

   Calculating Business Days
There are calendar days and then there are business days. Excel provides the NETWORKDAYS function that is helpful to figure out how many business days there are between two dates.

   Counting Dates in a Range
Excel makes working with a list of dates relatively easy. If you have a list of dates, you may need to know how many of those dates fall within a certain range. Here's how to get the count you need.

   Elapsed Days as Years, Months and Days
Need to know how many days there are between two dates? It's easy to figure out—unless you need the figure in years, months, and days. Here's why.

   End-of-Month Calculations
Don't want to use the EOMONTH function to figure out the end of a given month? Here are some other ideas for discovering the date you need.

   Parsing Non-Standard Date Formats
When you load data into Excel that was created in other programs, the formatting used for some types of data (such as dates) may not be understood by Excel. Here's how to convert the data to a format that can be used by the program as you expect.

   Specifying Different Weekends with NETWORKDAYS
The NETWORKDAYS worksheet function can be used to easily determine the number of work days (Monday through Friday) within a range of dates. If your workweek consists of different days, however, the NETWORKDAYS function may not be the best place to start.

   The EDATE Function
Want to figure a date a certain number of months in the future or past? The EDATE function may be just what you need for your calculation.

   Unique Date Displays
Need to print an elapsed date in a strange format? It's easier to do than may appear at first glance. Here's a discussion on how to get your results in just the format you want.

   Using Excel for Timing
Excel allows you to store times in a worksheet. If you want to use Excel to time certain events, there are a couple of ways you can approach the task.

   Using the EOMONTH Function
If you need to determine the date of the last day in a month, it's hard to beat the flexibility of the EOMONTH function. This tip explains how to use this function in your formulas.

   Weekdays in a Month
Want to find out how many of a particular weekday occur within a given month? Here's how you can find the desired information.

   Working with Elapsed Time
Work with times in a worksheet and you will eventually want to start working with elapsed times. Here's an explanation of what they are and how to best work with them in Excel.

   Working with Minutes
For many Excel users—particularly beginners—working with elapsed time can be bewildering. This tip explains how you can display and work with elapsed minutes in a workbook.