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OK, on with today's tip...
There are two ways you might want to capture and use the current date and/or time:
- Referring to the current date and/or time in a formula;
- Entering the current date or time in a cell
Referring to the current date and/or time in a formula
Excel offers two functions for this purpose.
The TODAY function evaluates to today's date and is entered as follows (it has no arguments):
=TODAY()
The NOW function works similar to today, but also includes the current time.
If you want to know how Excel handles dates and times, take a look at my earlier post on the subject.
Entering the current date or time in a cell
Sometimes, however, it is not a dynamic reference to the the current date or time that you want, but to enter a fixed version of the current date or time into a cell. The following two shortcuts will allow you to do this:
Ctrl+; this enters the current date in the active cell
Ctrl+: (i.e. Ctrl+Shift+;) enters the current time in the active cell
These are great for if you want to log, say, the start and end times of an activity as you do it.
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You can apply both of the shortcuts at the same time into one cell to give you date & time in the same cell - the equivalent of =Now() but static.
ReplyDeleteCtrl+; first then Space then Ctrl Shift+; this would give you 29/04/2014 19:54 (system time at the time of key presses).
You need to enter a space between shortcuts to improve readability and correct formatting. If you make the entries the other way around without a space, you get the wrong date!
Steve
Thanks Steve. That's an excellent extension of the functionality!
DeleteI created a Cell with =Now() and Cut and Past from it.
Delete