Counting Days

[DyingIsis]

Hello -

I'm trying to figure out a formula that tells me the number of days until a
date or tells me how many days have passed since the date.

Meaning, if today is 01/01/10 and my target date is 01/05/10, I would like
the formula to return "-5".

If today is 01/10/10 and my target date was 01/05/10, I would like the
formula to return "5".

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Huber57]

DyingIsis,

You can substract dates from each other. Each day = 1. So if you have a
date in A1 and a date in A2 you can subtract the two.

Just format the cell as a number (instead of a date).

Hope that helps. If it has, please rate it as helpful at the bottom of the
post.

 

[Ron Rosenfeld]

Hello -

I'm trying to figure out a formula that tells me the number of days until a
date or tells me how many days have passed since the date.

Meaning, if today is 01/01/10 and my target date is 01/05/10, I would like
the formula to return "-5".

If today is 01/10/10 and my target date was 01/05/10, I would like the
formula to return "5".

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks for your time.

Excel stores dates as numbers with 0 = 1/1/1900

So you just subtract one from the other and format as General.
--ron

 

[DyingIsis]

Hello -

Ah, yipes. I should better explain.

In Column A, I have my target date sometime in the future.

In Column B, I would like it to tell me how many days from today will be my
target date. (I want the output to look like a countdown, so the output
should be a negative number prior to my target date.)

If today is past my target date, I would like the output to be a positive
number counting how many days I am already past the target date.

Hope that helps to clarify the question.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Huber57]

Can you just put a negative in the formula?

=-(A1-A2)

 

[David Biddulph]

=TODAY()-A1+SIGN(TODAY()-A1)
Format the result as General, not as a date.

 

[Fred Smith]

Which is the the same as:
=A2-A1

Regards,
Fred

Can you just put a negative in the formula?

=-(A1-A2)