Comments on: How to insert dates in Excel - add today's date, auto fill a column with dates

This tutorial demonstrates various ways of entering dates in Excel. See how to insert today's date and current time as static or dynamic values, how to auto populate a column or row with weekdays, and how to auto fill random dates in Excel. Continue reading →

Comments page 3. Total comments: 442

  1. Anyone can help me how to apply in excel like date of expiration in contract and remind me the date in the same day occur.

  2. I have a contact sheet with websites & passwords I would like to add a "last updated" column to it. How do I have excel automatically updated the date in that column whenever anything is changed on the row for the contact?

      1. Got it, Thank you Alexander Trifuntov (Ablebits Team) for you help!

  3. Hi,

    Good day.

    How can I put EDA in a column next to the date the item will be ready.

    Many thanks
    Sami

  4. I'm creating a document that needs to show due dates of assignments, and would like it to auto fill based on how many days the assignment is due. Example: I will have a place for today's date, below is a list of assignments that range from 3 days to 10 months that are due, and I would like it to auto fill when I put todays date in when each assignment is due. Can anyone help?

      1. Hood day Hope you can help me?

        i would like to calculate interest from selected dated - that I can do BUT
        i would like to have a description Colum I used the following "formula" Colum B has the dates
        =CONCAT("Interest on outstanding capital from ",B51," to ",B52)

        but i get this as a result Interest on outstanding capital from 42527 to 42571

        i have colum B as a date Culum - Short date

        i hope im clear with my query

        Thank you in advance

        Awie

  5. Greetings,

    Please help with excel formula.

    I have got a sheet with employees' hire date in the organisation. In terms of the BCEA and company policy, each employee's sick leave is running for three year cycle.

    I need a formula to calculate when does each employee's three cycle is ending. The formula must cater for those employees who started with the organisation long years ago (e.g. 1980-Oct-01). How to calculate the next 3 year cycle using employee 's hire date?

    1. Hi!
      The information you provided is not enough to understand your case and give you any advice, sorry. Give an example of the source data and the expected result.

  6. Dear all,
    I don't know Excel have function as below or not:
    1. Production plan at cell: A1:A1= 24Boxes ( When 8:00AM)
    2. Would like to set up function at B2:B2 (need to setup function to capture data from A1:A1 when 9:00AM)
    3. After 5:00PM Update Actual output=22Boxes into A1:A1, But no need Data of B2:B2 change(Still need 24boxes)
    *** The question: How can i do?

    1. Hi!
      You can use the IF function to update the value of a cell after 09:00 or some other time. Try this formula:

      =IF(NOW()>TIME(9,0,0),A1,"")

      If this is not what you wanted, please describe the problem in more detail.

  7. my date appears as 1/0/1900. what am i doing wrong?

  8. Hey,
    I am trying to find a way of getting the excel to return the date when a specific field in a table is set to 'yes'. So whenever I set 'J' cell to yes I need the spreadsheet to show the day it was set to yes in another column.
    Below is the formula I came across but it is not exactly what I expected.

    =IF(J4="yes",TEXT(TODAY(),"mm/dd/yyyy"),"") function kind of works but my issue is that I need the excel to show the exact date when 'J' cells are set to yes.

    Any feedback would be highly appreciated.
    Thank you

  9. Hello, back in October 2021 you wrote a formula for me to convert this type of date stamp : Jan 10, 2022 07:02 AM to 10/01/22. This worked well but did not work where the date was a single digit eg. Jan 4, 2022 04:50 PM. You gave me the updated formula but unfortunately it has been over written. Can you re-cap how to amend this formula to cater for single digit dates?

    =DATE(MID(A2,FIND("~",SUBSTITUTE(A2," ","~",2),1)+1,4), VLOOKUP(LEFT(A2,3), {"JAN",1;"FEB",2;"MAR",3;"APR",4;"May",5;"JUN",6;"JUL",7;"AUG",8;"Sep",9;"OCT",10;"NOV",11;"DEC",12},2,0), MID(A2,FIND(" ",A2,1)+1,2))

    Thank you in advance, Laura

      1. That's great thank you so much

  10. how can I automatically get 2nd December by typing 2/12 (dd/mm) instead of 12/2 (mm/dd)?
    Thanks

  11. wanted to get date auto changed once i made any changes in excel sheet but require date to be change only when i did any changes.

    so how i do this please help

    1. Hi!
      The article above describes in detail how and when the date that you inserted using the TODAY or NOW function changes.

  12. How do I generate a series of dates in a column between a specific range that only provides Tuesday and Thursday or Monday and Wednesday? Thanks.

    1. Hi!
      Write the date in cell A1, which is Monday. In cell A2, write down the formula

      =IF(WEEKDAY(A1,2)=1,A1+2,A1+5)

      Copy the formula down the column.
      You can learn more about WEEKDAY function in Excel in this article on our blog.

  13. Hi.
    I’m trying to create a fiscal year calendar starting from April 1st to March 31st where I can input colleagues time off using hours and not days.

    I’ve used a template from excel but when looking at the dates after choosing the year, it’s displaying the dates wrong on some months.

    Ie. February only has 28 days in the month but somehow manages to display 31 and then that puts March 1st on the wrong day.

    The cells all have pretty much a different formula

    Cells C7 to I30 have:
    =IFERROR(IF(TEXT(DATE(Calendar_Year,ROW($A4),1),”ddd”)=LEFT(G$6,3),DATE(Calendar_Year,ROW($A4),1),IF(F7>=1,F7+1,””)),””)

    Cells J7 to AG30 have:
    =IFERROR(IF(I7>=1,I7+1,””),””)

    Cells AH7 to AR30 have:
    =IFERROR(IF(AND(AG7>=1,AG7+1<=DATE(Calendar_Year,ROW($A4)+1,0)),AG7+1,””),””)

    Any help would be much appreciated.

    1. Hello!
      I cannot verify how your formulas work. They contain references to cells in your tables. But I can't guess what data is written there. Please provide me with an example of the source data and the expected result.

  14. My difficulty is if i chose cell from another sheet which have "DATE" formula. And i want to change that date into another date to in the cell in which i have to do the modification. So which formula i should use, So i get direct result. like cell have today date (13/11/2021) and i have to change it into 15/11/2021 in the another cell but by keeping reference of the cell which have todays date.

  15. How to auto populate Monday of the week for next few years.

    1. Choose your first date (a date when day is Monday) and then use auto fill series option with step of 7. It will give you date of next Monday and so on.

  16. Very helpful and well-written. Thanks!

  17. Hi!
    I have 12 colums (1 for each month). Is there a formula where I can only write the day under january, for example, and it automatically fills the month (january) and year (2021)? Eg: I type 1 under January colum and its fills into 2021-01-01?

    Thank you!

  18. Hey there,
    When I insert a date into a cell it calculates by a value of one (using on a point system), how do I adjust the formula to calculate by a value of .5?

    Thank you,

  19. Good day. I want to auto update the date in a cell, each time I update my sheet. For instance, the date must update in A1 when I enter a value in B1. Then tomorrow when I enter a value in B2, that day"s date must auto update in A2.

    Please help.

    Kind regards
    Werner

  20. I need to make a auto timer with date and time, if time for the next day it’s not changing in date

    1. Hello!
      To prevent your date from automatically changing, you can use several methods:
      1. Use Shortcuts to insert the current date and time
      2. Use the recommendations from this article in our blog.
      3. Replace the date and time returned by the TODAY function with their values. Copy the date (CTRL + C), then paste only the values using Paste Special or Shortcut CTRL + ALT + V.

  21. Is there any formula for updating the date automatically once i copy paste the data in another sheet of the excel. The purpose being i need for a stat update daily while keeping the old one.

    1. Hello!
      Pay attention to the following paragraph of the article above — Functions to insert today's date that updates automatically

  22. Ok. I am looking for dates to auto populate based on a loan term and how many days left till the end of each month.

    Want the formula to know if the loan term will be 24 months (2 yrs) and or 36 months (3 yrs).
    Would like to create a formula that takes into account todays date, determine how many days left till the end of the month, once the 10 day mark is reached before the end of the month want the dates to auto populate to the next cycle.

    For example using two year term.

    Cell A1 = Loan Payment Date (Example value (06/01/2021)
    Cell B1 = Loan End Date before (Example value (07/01/2023)

    but since todays date is 5/25/2021 want the formula to recognize it is < 10days till end of month and change the Loan Payment Date to 07/01/2021 and the Loan End Date 08/01/2023.

    I know its possible just don't know how to create the formula.

    1. Hi!
      An Excel formula can change the value only in the cell that it is pasted in. If you need to change the content on the cell that has some value in it, you’ll need to use a VBA macro.

      1. There is a way to do it without using a macro. I guess you are not that advanced in Excel as you would like to think you are.

  23. Sir, i am using =IF(B2"", IF(C2="" ,NOW(), C2), "") this formula and having a problem for last few days.

    Problem is:
    When I go into the spreadsheet, every day take the current date for my last few entries .

    I m using google spreadsheet.

    could you pls give me solution

    1. Hello Noman,

      NOW in Google Sheets is a volatile function meaning it recalculates itself each time any change is made in a spreadsheet. There are 2 ways to change this behavior:

      1. Open the spreadsheet, go to File > Spreadsheet settings > Calculation and pick one of three existing settings for Recalculation.
      2. Enter static dates and time manually or using the following keyboard shortcuts:
        • Ctrl+; for date
        • Ctrl+Shift+: for time

  24. copy date and time off pdf sheet into a log?

  25. i use this but its not working
    =IF(B1="yes",IF(C1="yes",NOW(),""),FALSE)

    apple yes 0/1/1900
    banana yes 0/1/1900
    grape yes 0/1/1900

    1. Hello!
      If I understand correctly, you want to replace the value in C1 with the current date using the formula. We have said many times on our blog that this is only possible with a VBA macro.

  26. How do I dislay result as "as on today date in excel

  27. I have JAN2021 sheet with columns labeled with dates D2=01-JAN, E2=02-JAN, F2=03-JAN until AG2=30-JAN then rows C4=John, C5=Albert, C6=Mark until C58=Steve with D4:AG58 marked either as x or v. Another sheet called Dates with rows C2=John, C3=Albert until C56=Steve and columns F2:AI56 blank. Question is how can I auto-populate the date in F2:AI56 from Jan2021 sheet when I enter v as a value in D4:AG58?

    JAN2021
    D2=01-Jan
    C4=John
    D4= v

    Dates
    C2=John
    F2=autopopulate 01-Jan

  28. date formula not working

    1. Hello!
      Please specify what you were trying to find, what formula you used and what problem or error occurred. Give an example of the source data and the expected result.
      It’ll help me understand it better and find a solution for you.

  29. i want your help please...
    i want to enter the specific month and year on A3, and i want to automatic fill A7 with the next month of A3, how will i do it?
    Thanks

  30. one question!
    how insert date automatically in Excel every day change it automatically date?

  31. Hi I need a date to auto populate when I put a name in the adjacent cell. I am going to put a name or something in a1 and I need a2 to populate a the date automatically.

  32. Thanks . Good Topic . I had learn 2 more things from here

  33. in excel how do i enter a RANDOM date - at present only ####### appears after i enter a date and press return

    1. Hello Chris!
      I’m sorry but your task is not entirely clear to me.
      Please describe your problem in more detail.
      Explain how you enter a random date. Do you write it manually or use some kind of formula?
      In this case, I will try to help you.

  34. Sir I want renewal date auto fill by drag ., For example- i have in A column 01/04/2015, 30/01/2013, 21/05/2018, it result show in column B is 31/03/2020, 29/01/2020, 20/05/2020 please give me the formula

  35. Hi,
    i want to make one column text eg:Active or Expired according to current date in another column.
    is there any formula or format?

    1. Hello Mubashir!
      Please use the following formula

      =IF(TODAY()>A1,"Expired","Active")

      If there is anything else I can help you with, please let me know.

  36. Hi,
    i want to make one column to change the text(for eg: Active or Expired) according to the current date.
    can have a formula or format for this?

  37. Hi will you be advise how can you track completion date(fixed date) in an IF function i.e. if(A3="Completed",*fixed date to track when completed,"On-going")

    Help would be much appreciated

  38. I want to add a date in cell A14 on one sheet, then auto populate, plus one day, in cell a14 on every sheet following. Can you help me?

  39. Send always new formulas in my email

  40. Very helpful! Thank you!

  41. Hi,
    I want to enter a date in cell A4 and it to auto populate in B4 with the date 28 days in advance so: A4 01/01/2019 - B4 29/01/19. How can i do this automatically without having to go to fill - series every time?

  42. when i put a new date is showing that date must be between 1st-Oct-2018 and 30-Sep-2019
    why?

  43. the date will be the previous cell after data entry in next cell

  44. when i open excel sheet automatically show on the current date! how did

  45. How to make timestamp for a cell created date (when a value is entered in cell) and last modified date (when the value in the cell is changed)?

    I only found formula which record the workbook create/last mod date.

  46. How do I autofill down a row from most recent month to prior month? For example, May 2019 in top cell of the row and then autofill for April 2019, March 2019, etc. in cells underneath the top cell?

  47. Hello there, I am wanting to auto generate the current date and time "NOW" function every time I enter data into another cell.
    Example: If I enter data into cell A3 I would like it to automatically generate "Now" function into cell B3 as I continue to enter data in the A column.
    Did I miss something that you already covered?

    1. Any update on this?

  48. WHEN IN GIVE INTERY IN NEXT SHELL IT DATE FORMATE NOT WORKING

  49. Can you enter a start date and end date which will then insert the range of dates on the worksheet? I’m trying to add school dates for a half term.

  50. Changing Year but Date has no change in daily.

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