Excel thinks 1900 was a leap year???

[CR]

If I have a cell A1 with the formula:

=DATE(1900, 4, 15) ==> Easter Sunday in 1900

and then I try to calculate Ash Wednesday for 1900 in cell B1, which is
46 days before Easter:

=A1 - 46

Excel gives 2/29/1900 as the answer in B1. Great. Except 1900 was not
a leap year. Has anybody figured out a work around? I'm on Office2K
SP3.

Thanks!

 

[Bob Phillips]

You just need to cater for it with 1900, adjust by 1.

--
HTH

Bob Phillips

(replace xxxx in email address with googlemail if mailing direct)

 

[Tom Ogilvy]

Lotus 1-2-3 incorrectly treated 1900 as a leap year, so Excel has maintained
that error for compatibility reasons from its earliest verions - at least
that is the story that is told.

The work around would be to recognize that and adjust for it.

 

[CR]

Even though this is off-topic a little, but does anybody know if
OpenOffice's spreadsheet program has the same problem?

 

[Tom Ogilvy]

http://www.openofficetips.com/blog/archives/date_time/index.html

search for leap year or 1900 and it indicates that OpenOffice has not
inherited this behavior. I found another citation that confirmed this and
stopped looking.

 

[CR]

Excellent. Thanks Tom. OO is looking more and more appealing...