Microsoft Excel was created with the intention of facilitating office work in accounts, it has also become such a versatile application that you can handle text material without any problem, without the need to use numbers.
However, at first, it may seem like a complicated program for those who do not have any experience in the area. Here you will learn some Excel functions, including how to set or insert the automatic date and time in an Excel cell.
How does Microsoft Excel work?
If you are new to using this app, you may be wondering how it works. You may know that it is primarily geared towards calculations and number operations, but Microsoft Excel covers more than that.
Although it is logical that this program allows you to work with numbers and that it is ideal for calculating mortgage loans, simple sums and even creating graphs to illustrate certain calculations, the truth is that in Excel we can perform other types of work.
Excel’s function is really to speed up the work of tabulating and organizing information. Therefore, it is extremely helpful when inserting data to handle, edit, interpret and store it. In this sense, it is important that you know how all Excel formulas are used in a spreadsheet.
Therefore, although it is special in the fields of administration and accounting, it also serves to perform other tasks such as creating a professional invoice in Excel from scratch, inserting images in spreadsheets and using predesigned templates to tabulate information.
In addition, it can also be used to create schedules, work or school schedules, create calendars, to write and manage accounting reports, among others. If you want to know other methods, you may be interested in visiting the official Microsoft page where more about Excel is explained to you.
How to add date and time automatically in an Excel cell?
If you want the current time and date to be recorded in a cell of your spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel, there are at least two ways to do it, here you will learn what they are, let’s see the first:
Now and today function
With this tool, the current time and date will be updated every time you open the document. Therefore, neither the time nor the date will remain fixed.
Click on the cell where you want the time and date to appear and write “= TODAY ()” if what you want to be reflected is the current date or write “= NOW ()” if what you want to see is the time and current date.
And if you want the date to be sometime after or before, it is also possible. You just have to put the function “= TODAY () + 5” which is the current date plus 5 days. “= NOW () – 0.5” is used to see the date and time of 12 hours ago. And the function “= NOW () + 7” is used to see the date and time in 7 days.
Keyboard shortcut
If what you want is to leave a date and time statically, that is, that its value does not change or update, you can use this method.
Go to the cell where you want to place the date and time and press the “Ctrl +,” buttons to add the date and ” Ctrl + Shift + .” to add the time. If you want to put both together, you just have to type “Ctrl +, Ctrl + Shift +.” and press “Enter” leaving a space between both controls.
If you have the latest version of Excel, the controls change a bit. In case it would be “ Ctrl + Shift +. “To insert the current time and” Ctrl +; ” to insert the current date.
Additionally, you can also change the time format from 24 hours to 12 hours. You do this by selecting the cell in which the date is located, right-clicking and choosing “Format cells”. Then you just have to add “AM / PM” in the “Type” section and that’s it.
If you want to know how to change the font or font size in all cells in Excel, you can read this article to help you learn.