Microsoft's Excel program is a powerful processor that makes it easy for many users to work daily with large amounts of tabular data. However, even experienced specialists who have been working with this program for many years are sometimes lost before having to insert the current date and time into the worksheet cell. This is mainly due to the fact that the "Date" function, which would be logical to use to obtain the desired values, performs a completely different task. In this article, we will tell you about the different types of dates used in Excel, about how to get them and features of application.
Date Types
Excel considers two options for the "Date Current" value. The first of them is a fixed value of the current date and time stored on the user's personal computer. Once entered into a worksheet, the value will not change regardless of the change in the real date and time. When may this option be needed? There are many answers, for example, when we store the date the employee was hired or fired, we enter the date the goods arrived at the warehouse. These values should be static, because over time they do not change.
The second variant of the value "Date Current" is dynamic, mutable, updated. The most common use of this option is the value of the date and time in the corner of the worksheet, as part of the inscription "Today is May 14, 2017." This option is widely used in formulas, for example, to calculate how many days have passed since a certain date. Thus, the personnel officer can find out if the probationary period of an employee has come to an end, and the warehouse employee will check whether the expiration date of the consignment has expired.
Of course, dynamic date and time in Excel is very useful, but there is a very important nuance: continuous updating of these values does not occur. The entered value will change when the book is rediscovered, when executing a macro, and when calculating various formulas. If you just leave the book open and do not perform any of the above actions, the date and time will remain in the values that you entered once. But it is worth re-opening the book or recounting the formula, as the values are updated.
Let's see how to insert these two types of dates in Excel.
Fixed date, not updated
The Excel value "Current Date" can be obtained by simply pressing the keyboard shortcut Ctrl and ";". Just stand on the desired cell in the worksheet and immediately, while holding down the Ctrl key, click the semicolon. The current date will appear in the cell in a short format, for example, May 14, 2017.
To insert time, perform a similar operation: while holding down the Ctrl key, press and hold Shift and also press the semicolon. All. The current time is inserted in the format "hours: minutes".
To save both the date and the time in a cell, just after inserting the date, press the spacebar and insert the time using the specified key combinations.
As you can see, pasting the current date of a fixed format in Excel is very simple. The only inconvenience is that on most keyboards that do not have additional buttons, switch to the English layout.
Dynamic Date Updated
The current date in the updated form is set in Excel using formulas. There are two options:
- The formula "= TODAY ()" allows you to get the values of the current date.
- The formula "= DATE ()" allows you to get the values of the current date and time.
These functions have no arguments, and the values obtained during their use are updated every time when recalculating / copying / stretching formulas or reopening the sheet.