Converting date to numerical and doing calculations

[Teddy]

Does anyone know how to convert a date into a single number so that you
can do calcuations with it? For example, Nov,2005 minus January, 2004
equals 23.

 

[Guest]

I'm guessing that you are counting months between two dates, right?

Take a look at Chip Pearson's site about dates and date calculations:

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/datedif.htm

 

[Myrna Larson]

Dates ARE stored as numbers, specifically the number of elapsed days since Dec
31, 1899. If you want the difference in months, you can use the undocumented
DATEDIF function: =DATEDIF(A1,B1,"m")

 

[bill k]

dates are actually stored as normal numbers

for instance

a2 has 23/01/2005
a1 has 12/11/2004
both formatted as dates

if you would copy paste and format the pasted cells as numbers you se

that 23/01/2005 is now 38375 and 12/11/2004 is 38303

in a3 enter =a2-a1
formatted as number
result 72

in a4 enter =a1-a2
formatted as number
result -72

if result is ############### then the cell is still formatted as a dat
and
you have a negative "date