Introduction

When conducting analysis in Excel for business related problems, you will likely encounter the data type of $"$d elements of business are tied to dates. As such, Excel has numerous functions and techniques that allow you gain the insights you need. This tutorial will help you learn more about date functions in Excel and the spread your working document. Go ahead and click on the link to navigate to the spreadsheet.

The first thing to understand about dates in Excel is thaf Excel sees every date as a number. Fundamentally, number $"1"$ to the date January $1,1900(\frac{1}{1}\frac{?}{1900}).$ Oftentimes you will need to change the formatting of a c so that it displays correctly, but underneath every date is a number. Let's practice and see how this works.

The data has been collected in the Microsoft Excel Online file below. Open the spreadsheet and perform the re answer the questions below.

NOTE: Do not copy $/$ paste dates or times directly from Excel into the fields below as errors may oc date and time answers as text strings as they appear in Excel using your keyboard.

Open spreadsheet

Date Fundamentals

In cells A$2$:A$6$ you will find numbers. We would like to change those numbers into actual dates using cells $B2$:$8$ this, enter $=A2$ into cell B$2.$ That will essentially copy A$2$ into B$2$ using a formula. Next drag down B$2$ to B$6$ to select cells B$2$:B$6,$ navigate to the Home tab, locate number formatting, and then use the down arrow to select