Date is current. How to get the current date and time in Excel
Excel from Microsoftis a powerful processor that facilitates a lot of users daily work with a large amount of tabular data. However, even experienced professionals who have worked with this program for many years are sometimes lost before having to insert the current date and time into the cell of the worksheet. Basically this is due to the fact that the function "Date", which would be logical to use to get the desired values, performs a completely different task. In this article, we will tell you about the different types of dates used in Excel, the methods of obtaining them and the features of the application.
Types of dates
Excel considers two variants of the value "Datethe first one is a fixed value of the current date and time stored on the user's personal computer Once entered in the worksheet, the value will not change regardless of the change in the real date and time .Where can this option be needed? , when we store the date of the employee's employment or dismissal, we enter the date of receipt of the goods to the warehouse.These values should be static, because they do not change with time.
The second variant of the value "Date current" -dynamic, modifiable, updatable. The most common application of this option is the date and time value in the corner of the worksheet, as part of the inscription "Today is May 14, 2017". This option is widely used in formulas, for example to calculate how many days have passed since a certain number. Personnel thus can find out whether the probationary period of an employee has come to the end, and the warehouse employee will check whether the expiry date for the consignment has not ended.
Undoubtedly, the dynamic date and time in Excelare very useful, but there is a very important nuance: there is no continuous updating of these values. The entered value will be changed when the book is rediscovered, when the macro is executed, and when various formulas are calculated. If you just leave the book open and you will not perform any of the above actions, the date and time will remain in the values that you entered once. But it's worth re-opening the book or recounting the formula as the values update.
Consider how to insert these two kinds of dates in Excel.
The date is fixed, not updatable
Excel value "Current date" can be obtainedby simply pressing the keyboard shortcut Ctrl and ";". Just stand on the desired cell in the worksheet and immediately, while holding down the Ctrl key, click the semicolon sign. The cell will display the current date in a short format, for example, May 14, 2017.
To insert the time, perform a similar operation: hold down the Ctrl key, press and hold Shift and also press the semicolon. All. The current time was inserted in the format "hours: minutes".
To save the date and time in the cell at once, just after inserting the date, press the spacebar and insert the time using the specified shortcut keys.
As you can see, inserting the current date of a fixedformat in Excel is very simple. The only inconvenience is that it is necessary to switch to the English keyboard layout on most keyboards that do not have additional buttons.
Date is dynamic, updated
The date that is current in an updated form is specified in Excel using formulas. Option two:
- The formula "= TODAY ()" allows you to get the values of the current date.
- The formula "= ТДАТА ()" allows to get the values of the current date and time.
These functions have no arguments, and the values obtained by using them are updated each time when recalculating / copying / stretching formulas or reopening a sheet.
