Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Calculating Weekend Dates.

Calculating Weekend Dates

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 30, 2023)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


Reuben needs to know, for any given date, when the next weekend is. For his purposes, weekends begin on Saturday, so this basically means coming up with a way to "round up" a date (Sunday through Friday) to the next Saturday.

There are any number of ways that you can calculate the date of the next Saturday. This is made possible because dates are stored internally by Excel as numbers, and numbers can be easily manipulated. Perhaps the easiest way to calculate the next Saturday is this formula:

=A1+7-WEEKDAY(A1)

You can also use a very simple application of the CEILING function, as shown here:

=CEILING(A1,7)

These two formulas will return the date of the next Saturday, unless the date in A1 is already a Saturday. If you want a starting date of Saturday to return the date of the following Saturday, then this formula will work just fine:

= IF(WEEKDAY(A1)=7,7,7-WEEKDAY(A1))+A1

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (9303) 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: Calculating Weekend Dates.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Opening a Text File and Template from the Command Line

Word includes a command-line syntax that you can use to open files and do other operations. If you want to load a text ...

Discover More

Locking Lines in a TOC

Want to "lock down" the lines in a TOC so that you cannot add new paragraph marks in the middle of one? You may not be ...

Discover More

Writing On Top of Locked Graphics

Getting graphics to appear right where you want them in relation to the text in your document can be a challenge. One ...

Discover More

Excel Smarts for Beginners! Featuring the friendly and trusted For Dummies style, this popular guide shows beginners how to get up and running with Excel while also helping more experienced users get comfortable with the newest features. Check out Excel 2019 For Dummies today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Incrementing Months in Dates

Excel can easily store dates. If you want to increment a date by one month, there are a number of ways you can accomplish ...

Discover More

Ages in Years and Months

Calculating an age is a common task when working with dates. If you want to figure out the number of years and months ...

Discover More

Unique Military Date Format

Some industries (such as the military) have special formatting that they use to represent dates. Here is one such format ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is 3 + 2?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.