Page 109 - Excel 2013 All-in-One For Dummies

It Takes All Kinds (Of Cell Entries) 91
What You Enter in the Cell
6-Jan-13 6-Jan Jan-13 1/6/13 5:25 5:25
5:25 P 17:25 17:25:33
Date or Time Recognized by Excel (As Displayed on the Formula Bar)
January 6, 2013 January 6 January, 2013 1/6/2013 5:25 a.m. 5:25:00 AM 5:25:00 PM 5:25:00 PM 5:25:33 PM
Understanding how Excel treats two-digit years
The only thing that’s a tad bit tricky about inputting dates in a spreadsheet comes in knowing when you have to input all four digits of the year and when you can get away with entering only two. As Table 1-1 shows, if you input the date 1/6/13 in a cell, Excel recognizes the date as 1/6/2013 and not as 1/6/1913. In fact, if you enter the date January 6, 1913, in a spreadsheet, you must enter all four digits of the year (1913).
Here’s how Excel decides whether a year for which you enter only the last two digits belongs to the 20th or 21st century:
✦ 00 through 29 belong to the 21st century, so Excels interprets 7/30/29 as July 30, 2029.
✦ 30 through 99 belong to the 20th century, so Excel interprets 7/30/30 as July 30, 1930.
This means that you don’t have to enter the four digits of the year for dates in the years 2000 through 2029, or for dates in the years 1930 through 1999.
Of course, if you can’t remember these cutoffs and are just generally con- fused about when to enter two digits versus four digits, just go ahead and enter all four digits of the year. Excel never misunderstands which century the date belongs to when you spell out all four digits of the year.
Numeric formulas
Many numeric entries in a typical spreadsheet are not input directly but are returned as the result of a calculation by a formula. The numeric formulas that you build can do anything from simple arithmetic calculations to com- plex ANOVA statistical analyses. (See Book III for complete coverage of all
Book II Chapter 1
Building Worksheets