TODAY & date parts — Excel guide
Dates are day-count serial numbers wearing a costume — once that clicks, comparisons, arithmetic, and extraction all make sense.
TODAY
The current date, refreshing itself daily.
- NOW() adds the time-of-day fraction; TODAY() is midnight.
- For a date that must NOT change, type Ctrl+; instead.
- YEAR / MONTH / DAY extract the parts as numbers; TEXT(date, "mmmm") gives names.
DATE
Build a date from year, month, day — locale-proof.
- Overflow rolls forward: DATE(2026, 13, 1) = Jan 2027, DATE(2026, 2, 30) = Mar 2. A feature for math, a trap for typos.
- Subtracting dates gives days: =B2-A2. Later date minus earlier.
- 'Dates' hugging the LEFT of their cells are text impostors — real dates right-align.
WEEKDAY
Day of the week as a number.
- The default (type 1) starts Sunday=1 — the source of most weekend-test bugs.
- Two-digit year trap: 1/1/29 parses as 2029 but 1/1/30 as 1930. Type four digits.