Excel: Show today's date
Invoices and other documents that you create with Excel often need today's date. With a simple function, Excel creates today's date and updates it later automatically.
Function for today's date in Excel
With the function "= TODAY ()" Excel creates the current date. If you need an older or future date, add "+ x" or "-x" to the day. This is illustrated below using the example of March 13, 2013:
- Enter the day "= TODAY ()": The date 13.03.2013 appears. If you save the document and open it at a later time, the current date is in the cell.
- To get the date of the previous day, expand the function by "-1". The formula changes to "= TODAY () - 1". Now Excel outputs March 12, 2013. As with the basic function, Excel updates the date automatically: If you open a document on another day, Excel calculates the date of the previous day. With higher numbers, you will get a date as far back as possible.
The instructions refer to Microsoft Excel 2010 under Windows 7. On Windows Vista and Windows 8, as well as MS Office versions 2007 and 2013, insert today's date in the same way.