keyboard shortcuts... CTRL+; does NOT equal CTRL+:

[Guest]

I just discovered that, at least on my Excel 97, keyboard shortcuts CTRL+; does NOT equal CTRL+

CTRL+; gives 1/0/00 12:45 <<the time but "no" dat
CTRL+: gives 1/14/04 0:00 <<the date but "no" tim

This has caused (minor) problems with a spreadsheet that I was pretty proud of

I had always thought these keyboard shortcuts were the equivalent of =NOW() and =TODAY(

Anybody else experience this

Thank you in advance

Roger Agnes
Orlando, F

 

[Jim Rech]

had always thought these keyboard shortcuts were the equivalent of =NOW()
and =TODAY()

You were mistaken I'm afraid. One's time and the other is date. Handy
shortcuts indeed.

 

[Peo Sjoblom]

You can use both, first the date, space and then the time

 

[David McRitchie]

More to the point if you do use both as Peo indicated to
create a constant if will be treated as one number specifically
date and time and not as text.

If that's not clear, date and
time are really the same Date a value representing days
past a certain date which in Excel is usually past
1899-12-31 plus the time as a fraction of a day. Because
it is stored as a number the space used is the same whether
it is a date, or a time, or contains both components.

More infomation on keyboard shortcuts:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/shortx2k.htm
More information on date and time
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/datetime.htm

HTH,
David McRitchie, Microsoft MVP - Excel [site changed Nov. 2001]
My Excel Pages: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
Search Page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/search.htm