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The serial number, or serial date, is the number Excel uses to calculate dates and times entered into a worksheet. The serial number is calculated either manually or as a result of formulas involving date calculations. Excel reads the computer's system clock to keep track of the amount of time that has elapsed since the date system's start date.
I am importing a table from Excel, and I have several fields with dates in
them. The problem is that many of these fields also have text, and so in order to preserve the data I have been importing them as calculated text fields. The problem that I have been having is that when I convert a date into text, it changes it into a date serial (i.e. changes 03/12/02 into 37327). My question is how do you change the date back from a date serial (a text string) to an actual date, or at least something that can be displayed in a date format? I've tried formatting the text, and I've checked out the Date functions in Access VBA, but they all seem to require something that's already formatted as a date, and not a date serial. Does anyone know how to do this? If anyone can offer any suggestions about how to change a date serial to a date (or how to import mixed columns without changing them to text) I'd love to hear them. Thanks, Chris Excel Vba Convert Date To Serial Number Lookup
Note: The information in this tutorial applies to Excel 2019, Excel 2016, Excel 2013, Excel 2010, Excel 2007, and Excel for Mac.
How to convert date to number or text in Excel? Convert date to number in Excel. Case 1 Convert Date as Date format to number. To convert date to word, here is a VBA code can help you, however, it is too long to splace here. You can go to this article to get the VBA. Convert a Text String Date to Date Serial Number In previous posts I’ve been going through some formulas designed to extract and convert a text string Date, to a.
Two Possible Date Systems
By default, versions of Excel that run on Windows store the date as a value representing the number of full days since midnight January 1, 1900, plus the number of hours, minutes, and seconds for the current day.
Versions of Excel that run on Macintosh computers default to one of the following two date systems:
All versions of Excel support both date systems and it's possible to change from one system to the other.
Serial Number Examples
In the 1900 system, the serial number 1 represents January 1, 1900, 12:00:00 a.m. while the number 0 represents the fictitious date January 0, 1900.
In the 1904 system, the serial number 1 represents January 2, 1904, while the number 0 represents January 1, 1904, 12:00:00 a.m.
Times Stored as DecimalsVba Convert Date To Integer
Times in both systems are stored as decimal numbers between 0.0 and 0.99999, where:
To show dates and times in the same cell in a worksheet, combine the integer and decimal portions of a number.
For example, in the 1900 system, 12 p.m. on January 1, 2016, is serial number 42370.5 because it is 42370 and one-half days (times are stored as fractions of a full day) after January 1, 1900. Similarly, in the 1904 system, the number 40908.5 represents 12 p.m. on January 1, 2016.
Serial Number Uses
Many projects that use Excel for data storage and calculations use dates and times in some way. For example:
Only one date system can be used per workbook. If the date system for a workbook that contains dates is changed, those dates shift by four years and one day due to the time difference between the two date systems.
Excel Date Serial Number ConversionChange the Default Date System
To set the date system for a workbook in Excel running on a Windows PC:
To set the date system for a workbook in Excel for Mac:
Why Two Date Systems?
PC versions of Excel (Windows and DOS operating systems) initially used the 1900 date system for the sake of compatibility with Lotus 1-2-3, the most popular spreadsheet program at the time.
The problem is that when Lotus 1-2-3was created, the year 1900 was programmed in as a leap year when in fact it was not. As a result, additional programming steps were needed to correct the error. Current versions of Excel keep the 1900 date system for the sake of compatibility with worksheets created in previous versions of the program.
Since there was no Macintosh version of Lotus 1-2-3, initial versions of Excel for Macintosh did not need to be concerned with compatibility issues. The 1904 date system was chosen to avoid the programming problems related to the 1900 non-leap-year issue.
On the other hand, it did create a compatibility issue between worksheets created in Excel for Windowsand Excel for the Mac. This is why all new versions of Excel use the 1900 date system.
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