Time Calculation

  • Thread starter Syed Zeeshan Haider
  • Start date
S

Syed Zeeshan Haider

Hello Experts,
I have Excel 97 Pro on Win98 SE.

I am trying to get the difference of months between two dates by using
following formula:

="October 2003"-"August 2000"

But I am getting 1156 as the result. What is this value?

How to get the difference of months?

Thank you,
 
C

Chip Pearson

Syed,

When you don't specify a day in a date, Excel uses the first day
of the month, so your formula is simply subtracting 1-Aug-2000
from 1-Oct-2003, and the result is the number of days, 1156. To
get the difference in months, use the DATEDIF function.

=DATEDIF("Aug 2000","Oct 2003","M")

See www.cpearson.com/excel/datedif.htm for more information about
DATEDIF.


--
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com


"Syed Zeeshan Haider" <[email protected]>
wrote in message
news:%233%[email protected]...
 
G

Gromit

Hi

The number you're seeing is the number of days between the two dates
To get the number of months, try this:

=DATEDIF("August 2000","October 2003","m")

Cheers,

Graha
 
S

Syed Zeeshan Haider

Syed,

When you don't specify a day in a date, Excel uses the first day
of the month, so your formula is simply subtracting 1-Aug-2000
from 1-Oct-2003, and the result is the number of days, 1156. To
get the difference in months, use the DATEDIF function.

=DATEDIF("Aug 2000","Oct 2003","M")
Click to expand...

Thank you very much! It worked.
See www.cpearson.com/excel/datedif.htm for more information about
DATEDIF.
Click to expand...

This link is important in two ways:
1. DATEDIF has not been documented by MS. This link is a great resource
for understanding this function.
2. It points to many other useful resources.
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Click to expand...

Can MVP's like you suggest Microsoft to modify their documentations
(considering the unavailability of DATEDIF in Excel 97 and 2002
documentations?

Thanks again!
 
S

Syed Zeeshan Haider

Hi

The number you're seeing is the number of days between the two dates.
To get the number of months, try this:

=DATEDIF("August 2000","October 2003","m")
Click to expand...

Thanks! It works very well.
 
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