I have a Date column, at the top I put a start date, then I want to just fill the column below with ascending dates. It ought to be simple.
Date is in some internal number format. I just want to add one and get to the next day.
The whole column is formatted in my preferred date style.
How to do this?
Date is in some internal number format
Date is the number of days since epoch, which starts on 1899-12-30 with day 0 - Today (2020-01-02) we have day number 43832
Ahh!
Its the little square twizzle in the corner of the cell. I did not notice it.
Where is that functionality documented? Does it mean +1?
I had thought this should be simple. It is, when you know how.
I wasted half a day trying work-arounds!
Thanks for help. Nice demo!
It does not do month roll-over, Jan 32, etc. That’s ok.
But also I am trying use format Fri, Dec 5 12019. How do you ‘over-format’ from 5 Dec 2019 to Fri,5 Dec 2019? Format cell does not seem to accept new format.
So as work-around, then I added a new Number column with format Number general with the cell content
=WEEKDAY(F3,1) F3 contains the 5 Dec 2019 and expecting some number between 1 and 7 which I could further function into Fri.
=WEEKDAY(F3,1) does not evaluate!
here is that functionality documented?
In Help.
Does it mean +1?
Not necessarily. For numbers (which dates also are), if one cell is selected, then yes. If you select two cells (e.g. with 1 and 3), it will analyze and try to detect the pattern. For formulas, it just copies formula. For strings, it tries to find a number which it will increment, like “1s”->“2s”, “3s” etc… otherwise, it will just copy verbatim.
But also I am trying use format Fri, Dec 5 12019
Again, look in Help. The format code would be NN, MMM D YYYY (if you made a typo in the “12019” above).
Generally, you need to learn basics.
Format cell does not seem to accept new format
=WEEKDAY(F3,1) does not evaluate!
… which indicates that your cell does not contain a date, but some text.
You may use Data->Text to Columns function to convert the text to dates - don’t forget to correctly set the column type (Date (DMY) in case of string like “5 Dec 2019”) in the function’s dialog.
F4 points to the top cell holding 5 Dec 2019 that I dragged down as per instrucions above. I have ascending dates, and the date format is set to Fri, 5 Dec 2019. But that does not work! Fri, does not show.
Anyway, F3 is surely a date field. It is NOT text.
Suggestions???
(The typo was just in the pos)
I don’t think that “F3 is surely a date field. It is NOT text” is true. Unless you use some conditional formatting, which overrides direct cell formatting.
Try to drag your dates beyond December: do the dates turn “1 Jan 2020”, or do they continue to 32 Dec 2019?
If anything else fails, provide a sample file to test.
