Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Using Early Dates.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 26, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365
There are three basic types of information that can be stored in a cell: numeric values, strings (text), and dates. In reality, dates are nothing more than numeric values, with the number being stored representing the number of days (and partial days for the time portion of a date) since January 1, 1900. This is a quick, handy way for Excel to store dates.
What happens, however, if you are doing genealogical or historical work and you need to keep track of dates that are earlier than 1/1/1900? There are essentially three ways you can approach this problem.
First, you can split up your dates. You could, for instance, include three columns for each date: one for day, one for month, and one for year. This, of course, will not allow you to change display formats for different date notations, but it will allow you to sort (using the column contents) as you desire, and to do rudimentary math on the dates. This approach to early dates can be the easiest to implement.
Another option is to use your own date notation for entering dates. For instance, if you wanted to enter the date for April 25, 1885, you could enter it as 18850425. This would be treated as a numeric value by Excel, which means you could do math based on the numbers. Because the notation has the year first, you could easily sort dates according to need. The only drawback to this method is that you cannot use Excel's date formatting, and you must get used to the notational syntax.
Finally, you can either create your own macros to work with out-of-range dates, or you can use a third-party solution. One such solution is found at Charley Kyd's site:
http://www.exceluser.com/formulas/earlydates.htm
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (11082) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Using Early Dates.
Excel Smarts for Beginners! Featuring the friendly and trusted For Dummies style, this popular guide shows beginners how to get up and running with Excel while also helping more experienced users get comfortable with the newest features. Check out Excel 2013 For Dummies today!
When doing data entry into a worksheet, you might want to enter dates without the need to type the separators that are ...
Discover MoreIf you need to know the years in which a particular date occurred on a specific day of the week, there are a number of ...
Discover MoreSome industries (such as the military) have special formatting that they use to represent dates. Here is one such format ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
2021-09-12 12:57:48
Tomek
I meant dates after Jan. 1 and before Mar. 1, 1900.
2021-09-12 12:54:57
Tomek
There is a bug in the way Excel handles dates before March 1, 1900. The bug stems from the fact that year 1900 was NOT a LEAP year, but Excel accepts Feb. 29 of that year as a valid date!. It assigns serial number 60 to this date. Hence any arithmetic calculations that crosses that date is off by one day.
Also, Excel accepts 0 as the date serial number - and converts it to 1900-01-00. However it will not accept entry of such a date as valid and will treat it as text.
In general, the dates are handled OK if they are between March 1, 1900 and December 31, 9999
2021-06-27 10:25:51
J. Woolley
For extended date functions (years 0100 to 9999), see Chapter 8 of J. Walkenbach, "Excel 2013 Power Programming with VBA Examples." You can Download from https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Excel+2013+Power+Programming+with+VBA-p-9781118490402
Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2024 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Comments