I am trying to enter these dates 18/3/20, 6/4/20, 28/4/20, 12/5/20 and 9/6/20 and use the days(xn;x-1,n) function.
each date in its own column, all side by side in a row.
and I just keep getting errors on the function.
I am using australian date format - 6/4/20 is the 6th of april.
How can I know if my cells contain date values as far as the spreadsheet is concerned?
Am I entering the dates incorrectly?
Am I entering the days() function incorrectly?
Hello,
you seem to enter your dates as text and not as real dates. To enter dates use the following least error prone procedure ( based on the dates of your question)
2020-03-18,2020-04-06,2020-04-28,2020-05-12 and 2020-06-09 *)DAYS() function to calculate the days between two dates.*) You can use your locale format (which I don’t know). See Tools -> Options -> Language Settings -> Languages -> Option: Date acceptance patterns about how LibreOffice accepts dates in your locale.
Background (why I describe it using ISO dates):
Entering dates depends on some language settings of your LibreOffice installation which in turn determine whether LibreOffice recognizes the values entered as a data or as a text. And I’m pretty sure, that LibreOffice failed to recognize your values as date. I guess you see the values left aligned and this would be a clear indication that the dates are not real calc dates (in terms of LibreOffice real dates are integer [=numbers)) but text. In addition note: Formatting cells does not determine how you could enter dates, i.e. it doesn’t determine/influence the date recognition algorithm of LibreOffice.
Thus the answer(s) to your question: How can I know if my cells contain date values as far as the spreadsheet is concerned
43868 (which is the 43868th day since 1899-12-30)Hope that helps.
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