Times also use a serial number format and are represented as decimal fractions. Tip: format the date serial number column as a Date and you'll see they look the same as the Date column values. 1 st January 2017 is 42,736 days since 31st December 1899.
The Date Serial Number column displays the Date column values in their date serial number equivalent.Į.g. 1 st January 1900 has a numeric value of 1, the 2 nd January 1900 has a numeric value of 2 and so on. These are called ‘date serial numbers’, and they enable us to do math calculations and use dates in formulas. DatesĮxcel gives each date a numeric value starting at 1 st January 1900. This isn't a problem as long as all your dates are later than 1st March 1900. Lotus 1-2-3 was incorrectly programmed as though 1900 was a leap year. Microsoft intentionally included this bug in Excel so that it would remain compatible with the spreadsheet program that had the majority market share at the time Lotus 1-2-3. Excel behaves as though the date 29th February 1900 existed, which it didn't. has a date serial number of 1.Ĭaution! Excel dates after 28th February 1900 are actually one day out. The integer portion of the date serial number represents the day, and the decimal portion is the time. If you change the cell format to 'General' you'll see the underlying date serial number. When you look at a date in Excel it's actually a regular number that has been formatted to look like a date. Excel Date and Time 101 In a nutshellĮxcel stores dates and time as a number known as the date serial number, or date-time serial number. You can see an example in the Format Cells dialog box below: mm/dd/yyyy.ĭates and times with a format that begins with an asterisk (*) automatically update based on your PC’s regional settings. However, if you open the accompanying Excel file you may see some dates have switched to match your regional settings, which may be different to mine e.g.
When reading this post keep in mind that my regional settings format dates as dd/mm/yyyy and so the screenshots throughout this post are in this format. Note: This is a zip file including an Excel workbook with detailed instructions and a PDF version for your reference.
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