Welcome to Excelling with Excel 2007

More Basics

Working with Dates
When you have completed this section on dates you are ready to explore formatting.

Dates in Excel are either volatile or static. Volatile dates change. This means that if you put a date on a spreadsheet using a volatile function, the next time you open the spreadsheet it will show that day's date. Example: if you use a volatile date function and prepare a spreadsheet on say April 15, 2008, close the spreadsheet and open it on April 20, 2008, the date that will show will be April 20, 2008.

IF you want a date to be static, that is stay the same, you type or key the date in.

I tend to use static dates more because many times I am generating a spreadsheet that requires input from various people. By keeping the date static, each of us who work on the spreadsheet can save the spreadsheet with a date. Example: say I created a spreadsheet on April 15, 2007, I would save the spreadsheet as taxes_april15_2008CK.xlsx. This tells me the spreadsheet was generated on April 15, 2008 and the initials after 2008 tell me who did the work. The next person who looks at the spreadsheet and makes some additions could save it as taxes_april20_2008EG.xlsx and so on.

It does depend on what you are doing as to whether you use a volatile or static date.

The Insert Function (fx) has a date and time category. You can select NOW or TODAY to generate volatile dates. Example:

• Try it!
• enter a volatile date in cell A1
• enter your birth date in cell A2
• select cell A3
• subtract A1 from A2
• you will get a date as an answer
• select the "answer cell" AND go to the Home tab - Number (click on the diagonal arrow)
• select number
• the date has now changed to a number
• AND, that number is the number of days you have been on this wonderful planet Earth
• Do you see - why a volatile date would be used in this instance?

And now you are ready to explore formatting.