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There are plenty of different ways to get training in Excel. If you are comfortable with self learning then there is a wealth of free Excel learning material available Online such as this VLOOKUP tutorial , plus an almost endless amount of free video Excel learning available on platforms such as YouTube. If you would prefer to be taught by an instructor then you can choose public courses at a training centre, or even local colleges (depending upon their monthly and seasonal training calendars). You could even have a trainer come out to your workplace for an on-site course. But if none of these options is right for you then you can also opt for virtual classroom Excel courses whereby you can attend from anywhere and still get the same great learning outcomes.

DateDif() the Hidden Excel Function that You Should Know About

Q: How do I Insert Today's Date in Excel?

To insert today's date in Excel use the shortcut CTRL; (hold down the CTRL and semicolon keys simultaneously) in the cell that you want to display today's date. That's all there is to it. Just two keys needed. If you want more control than this you can use the =Today() function. It takes a bit more typing than the shortcut CTRL; but it is also a lot more powerful as you can also use it to insert dates that are in the past as well as ones that are in the future. For instance =Today(+5) will insert the date that is five days into the future and =Today(-5) will insert the date that is five days in the past.

FourSquare Training Article

What is the Excel DateDif() Function?

The =DATEDIF() Function in Excel is a feature that allows you to calculate the numerical difference between two dates and returns an answer in a choice of Years (Y), Months (M) or Days (D).

This Easter Egg Excel function hasn't been documented for around two decades now but its still there and it still works today in 2024 and in Microsoft 365. =DATEDIF() was originally there for the sake of compatibility with LOTUS-123.

The DATEDIF() Function in a Nutshell
Calculating the Difference Between Two Dates with DATEDIF()
How to Insert Today's Date in Excel
How to Insert the Same Date in Multiple Cells in Excel
A Working Example of How to Use the =DATEDIF() Function in Excel
Handling a More Complex Scenario using the DATEDIF() Function
Video: The Hidden Excel Function =DATEDIF() in Action

Difficulty: We classify this tutorial as moderately easy. It is not for absolute beginners and you should ideally have some familiarity with using at least one or two simple built-in Excel functions.

The DATEDIF() Function in a Nutshell

In an absolute nutshell the syntax is:

=DATEDIF(D24,E24,"D")

where "D" is Day and can be substituted for "M" (Month) and "Y" (Year).

So, that's the quick answer and now let's have a slightly more detailed look at =DATEDIF(). At the end of this lesson there's also a video showing =DATEDIF() in action which takes you through the entire process.

The =DATEDIF() Function is very easy to use and it can quickly give you some meaningful and practical results which can really help you to visualise important aspects of any business over time. =DATEDIF() has innumerable real-world applications for business analytics and can provide insights that any organisation could benefit from no matter how big or small they are.

Because the =DATEDIF() Function is unsupported by Microsoft there are some 'buggy' aspects to it which we won't go into here in too much detail (although we do give one example when we look briefly at the function's additional operators).

The first thing you will probably notice is that because DateDif() is undocumented Excel won't help you to fill out the function as it does with all the other built-in Excel functions.

There are other scenarios too which may produce incorrect results, but we don't cover those scenarios here and now that you are aware of them its worth saying that the quick-win business benefits of using =DATEDIF() far outweigh any of the wrinkles that you might encounter.

So let's look at a practical example of =DATEDIF() in action:

Calculating the Difference Between Two Dates with DATEDIF()

At FourSquare Farms our chickens work five days on egg laying duties followed by a two-day break and we need to know which chickens to rotate off active duty this morning by working out how many days it is since each chicken last had a break. To do this we are going to use the =DATEDIF() Function.

We keep a record of the date each chicken has been working since in Column D. And in Column E we insert today's date using one of the following methods:

How to Insert Today's Date in Excel

Inserting Today's Date Using CTRL;

To insert today's date in Excel use the shortcut CTRL; (hold down the CTRL and semicolon keys simultaneously) in the cell that you want to display today's date. That's all there is to it. Just two keys needed.

Inserting Today's Date Using the TODAY() Function

If you want more control than you get with CTRL; then you can use the =TODAY() function. It takes a bit more typing than the shortcut CTRL; but it is also a lot more powerful as you can also use it to insert dates that are in the past as well as ones that are in the future. For instance =Today(+5) will insert the date that is five days into the future and =Today(-5) will insert the date that is five days in the past.

How to Insert the Same Date in Multiple Cells in Excel

Now we want today's date in every cell in that column. If you just use the traditional click and drag with the black crosshair to do this your dates will increase incrementally and that's not what we want here. We want the AutoFill to insert the same date in each cell.

If you don't know the following simple trick then this can be very frustrating indeed, especially because dates work differently to numbers when using Excel AutoFill. But we have the solution.

To insert the same date in each cell in a column, first insert today's date in the top cell (CTRL;). Next, select the black crosshair from the bottom-right corner of the cell and drag downwards so that the dates are inserted incrementally.

Here comes the clever bit. Select all the cells that you want to change and use the shortcut keys CTRL and D by holding down the CTRL and D keys simultaneously. Watch all the dates immediately change to today's date before your eyes.

A Working Example of How to Use the =DATEDIF() Function in Excel

Now we have all of our data set up and we are ready to use the =DATEDIF() Function. As with all the best things in life, the beauty of =DATEDIF() is in its simplicity.

So, in the top cell of our table in Column F (F24) we're going to start our DateDif() Statement.

What we want to work out is the difference in days between Column D and Column E.

We type the following into Cell F24.

=DATEDIF(D24,E24,"D")

Then hit enter.

We now get an answer to the question of how many days Chantelle has been working for without a break which you can see here:

Notice that the "D" operator for the number of days is in quotations marks. It is important that you remember this or you will get an error.

If you want to work in months or years just replace the "D" operator with "M" or "Y".

Next, from the bottom right corner of cell F24 select the crosshair and drag it down the column to find out how long all of our other chickens have been working.

We can see that the =DATEDIF() function has provided us with some really useful information that we need to act upon here as four of our chickens have been working far too long without any days off, so we'd best address this quickly before Animal Welfare come chasing after us.

The complete process of deploying the Excel =DATEDIF() function can easily take less than a minute as you can see in the video below which walks you through the full process.

Handling a More Complex Scenario using the DATEDIF() Function

We're not going to go much further with DATEDIF in this tutorial, but we will show you one slightly more involved scenario in order to illustrate the function's capabilities.

Suppose that our dataset spans over different months and years but that we only want to show just the difference in days whilst ignoring or excluding the years and months. Here the DATEDIF function treats the calculation as if the months and years didn't exist.

The DateDif function has three handy, additional operators that you can use in such scenarios.

"MD" shows only the difference in days (excludes months and year)
"YD" shows only the difference in days (excludes years)
"YM" shows only the difference in months (excludes days and years)

Here's an example which makes use of DATEDIF()'s MD operator:

When we calculate the number of days here (ignoring months and years) you will notice that one quirk of the DATEDIF() function here is that it treats every day as if it is in the next month. The count rolls over into another month even if the end date is the previous day in the same month (as in the first row of our results).

Once you start experimenting with the DATEDIF() function you will discover plenty of such wrinkles.

If you think about it though this is logical, because the function is ignoring the months themselves and therefore doesn't know that the end date is in the same month.

What is actually happening is that (in order to ignore the month of the end date), DATEDIF() has had to create a floating variable for the month in the start date and has used that to calculate the difference in days.

The Hidden Excel Function =DATEDIF() in Action (video length: 51 seconds)

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