DATE

B

Boyertown Casket

I have a date in cell A1 that I reference in other worksheets within one
workbook. The format CATEGORY is Date while the TYPE is January 27, 2009.

Is there a formula I can insert in A1 so that it updates when the system
clock does yet retains the dte format I favor?

Thank you.
 
R

Rick Rothstein

This won't update automatically across midnight by itself, but it will
update (if necessary) whenever the worksheet recalculates (so, under normal
circumstances, it should do what you want)...

=TODAY()
 
B

Boyertown Casket

That is even better. When you say recalculate, in its broadest sense does
this mean it will recalculate when the file is saved or opened?

Thanks for the quick response.
 
R

Rick Rothstein

It's a volatile function, so almost anything you do will trigger it to
recalculate, including Opening a Workbook; however, Saving a workbook is one
of the few things that does not trigger a volatile function to recalculate.
Of course, you can manually force the recalculation using F9 or Shift+F9 as
appropriate to your needs.
 
B

Boyertown Casket

I appreciate your quick and pertinent responses. As with most workbooks,
mine is a living document and what fixes some things creates problems in
others. I thought the answer you provided was great and it did work;
however, when I went to utilize it in another scenario, I found out this was
not good. :)

In the previous problem area, I wanted the current date to appear in
specific cells on various worksheets. Your solution of '=TODAY()' worked
great as these particular worksheets were constantly updated and utilized
continuously.

My problem is, I tried to use the same formula for an area of the workbook
that required me to keep a running log of the number of removals I made.
This also required the current date, but what I didn't think of, when the
date changed, so did my logs. I don't want that to happen. I need to
utilize the current date when the log was generated; however, that date must
not change when the next date occurs.

Is there a formula that will allow the current date to be inserted in a
cell, but remain constant and not change when the next date occurs?

Thanks.

Jerry
 
R

Rick Rothstein

You can make this automatic by using VB event code (I'll give you that if
that is how you want to go). However, there is a manual (non-formula) method
to insert today's date in a cell which might work for you. Key in the
following in any cell and it will insert today's date there as a constant
value... Ctrl+; (that is, the Control key coupled with the semi-colon key).
If you ever need the time to be inserted the same way, use the same key in,
but coupled with the Shift key as well.
 
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