Microsoft Excel X for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide

Date and Time Functions

Excel's date and time functions are designed specifically to work with dates and times. I tell you about the most useful ones here.

Table 1. Examples of how Excel Interprets Dates and Times

You Enter	Excel “Sees”
10/15/02	36082
6/30/61	21000
2:45 PM	0.61458333
10:02:35 AM	0.41846065
1/1/1904	0
12:00 AM	0

Tips

• Excel treats dates and times as serial numbers. This means that although you may enter information as a date or time— like 10/15/02 or 2:45 PM—Excel converts what you type into a number for its own internal use (see Table 1). A date is the number of days since January 1, 1904. A time is the portion of a day since midnight. Excel's formatting makes the number look like a date or time. I tell you about cell formatting ...