Need to count dates in a spreadsheet

[Tomcat]

I have a spreadsheet with a column containing dates formatted as mm/dd/yyy
and they are in random order. I need to count how many of the dates in the
column are in January, February, March, etc. and come up with totals in
another set of cells. I have tried various functions like COUNTIF with MONTH
but I cannot seem to get the right combination. Anybody out there ever do
this type of thing?

 

[Bernie Deitrick]

Tomcat,

Select all your dates (along with the heading), then choose Data / Pivot Table.... and press Finish.

Then drag the heading button to both the row and data areas, then right click the row area and
choose "Group..." and group by month.

You will get a count of the number of dates for each month (also separated by year...)

HTH,
Bernie
MS Excel MVP

 

[Tomcat]

Thanks Bernie. That worked just fine. How do I expand the pivot table as
the column range grows with more date entries?

 

[Bernie Deitrick]

Tomcat,

It depends. If you are manually entering the dates, insert a new cell above the last cell and then
enter the date into that cell. Or select more cells than you ever expect to use: select a cell in
the pivot table, then use the pivot table wizard and click "Back" then change the bottom row of the
range to some big number. Or use a dynamic named range. Or use a macro. Or create the Pivot Table
each time. Or.... Excel offers many many ways to skin any proverbial (tom)cat. ;-)

HTH,
Bernie
MS Excel MVP

 

[Tomcat]

Thanks once again. I appreciate the help.

Tomcat,

It depends. If you are manually entering the dates, insert a new cell above the last cell and then
enter the date into that cell. Or select more cells than you ever expect to use: select a cell in
the pivot table, then use the pivot table wizard and click "Back" then change the bottom row of the
range to some big number. Or use a dynamic named range. Or use a macro. Or create the Pivot Table
each time. Or.... Excel offers many many ways to skin any proverbial (tom)cat. ;-)

HTH,
Bernie
MS Excel MVP