Count days before a date - Help and How-to

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Count days before a date

Applies to: Microsoft Office Excel 2003

Let's say you want to find out how many days there are between two project dates or find out how many shopping days there are before a holiday. To count the days before a date, you can use the TODAY function.

Example

The example may be easier to understand if you copy it to a blank worksheet.

Show How to copy an example

Create a blank workbook or worksheet.
Select the example in the Help topic.
Note Do not select the row or column headers.

Selecting an example from Help
Press CTRL+C.
In the worksheet, select cell A1, and press CTRL+V.
To switch between viewing the results and viewing the formulas that return the results, press CTRL+` (grave accent), or on the Tools menu, point to Formula Auditing, and then click Formula Auditing Mode.

1

2
3

A
Date
1/1/2008
6/1/2007
Formula	Description (Result)
=A2-TODAY()	Number of days from current date to end of 2007 (Varies)
=A2-A3	Number of days from 6/1/2007 until the end of 2007 (214)

Notes

In the first formula above, the current date used is taken from the system clock.
In the last formula above, to view the date as a number, select the cell and click Cells on the Format menu. Click the Number tab, and then click Number in the Category box.

Function details

TODAY