Entering Dates and Times

Although Office 2010 Excel records dates and times as serial date values, you don’t have to enter them that way. You can manipulate dates and times in your worksheet formulas just as you manipulate other types of values. You enter date values in formats that Excel automatically applies. To enter date values in this way, type the date in one of the following formats: m/d/yy, d-mmm-yy, d-mmm, or mmm-yy.

If your entry doesn’t match any of the built-in date or time formats, Excel picks the format that’s most similar to your entry. For example, if you enter 1 Dec, you see the formatted entry 1-Dec in the cell. In the formula bar, the entry appears as 12/1/2011 so you can edit the date more easily.

You can also enter times in a time format. Select a cell and type the time in one of the follow-ing forms: h:mm AM/PM, h:mm:ss AM/PM, h:mm, h:mm:ss, or the combined date and time format, m/d/yy h:mm. Notice that you must separate the hours, minutes, and seconds of the time entries by colons.

If you don’t include AM, PM, A, or P with the time,Microsoft Office Standard 2010 Excel uses the 24-hour (military) time convention. In other words, Excel always assumes that the entry 3:00 means 3:00 AM, unless you specifically enter PM.