Every Second Tuesday

Roland is looking for a way to create a list of every second Tuesday through an entire year. Fortunately, there are many ways you can come up with every other Tuesday. The first is to simply use a formula to do the dates for you, as is done in these steps:

1. In cell A2, enter the date of the starting Tuesday.
2. In cell A3, enter the formula =A2+14.
3. Copy cell A3 down to as many cells as desired.

That's it; the dates are all Tuesdays—every second Tuesday—because you've added 14 (the number of days in two weeks) to the previous Tuesday's date. This approach has a benefit, as well: If you change the date in cell A2, then all the other dates change, as well. This allows you to have a dynamic set of dates, each date two weeks later than the previous date.

If you don't need the list to be dynamic, then you can create a list of second-Tuesday dates in this manner:

1. In cell A2, enter the date of the starting Tuesday.
2. Select the range A2:A30. (You can actually pick any range you want; just make sure you pick the range you want filled with dates, and cell A2 must be the first cell in the range.)
3. Choose Edit | Fill | Series. Excel displays the Series dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Series dialog box.

4. Change the step value to 14.
5. Click OK.

The result is that Excel fills all the selected cells with dates that are 14 days apart from each other. Another way to display the same Series dialog box is to perform step 1 and then right-click on the Fill handle and drag it downward. When you release the mouse button, a Context menu appears. Choose Series, and the Series dialog box appears. You can then continue with steps 4 and 5.

If you'd rather not mess with the Series dialog box, there is a shortcut way of accomplishing the same task using the Fill handle:

1. In cell A2, enter the date of the starting Tuesday.
2. In cell A3, enter the date of the second Tuesday following (14 days later).
3. Select cells A2:A3.
4. Drag the Fill handle downward for as many cells as desired.

When you release the Fill handle, Excel fills those cells with dates that are patterned after the two dates in cells A2:A3. Since those dates are two weeks apart, the filled dates will also be two weeks apart.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2428) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Listing Dates at Regular Intervals.