Select the product you need help with

XL: How to Display the Current Date and Time with Text

Article ID: 214093 - View products that this article applies to.

This article was previously published under Q214093

SUMMARY

You can enter the current date and time as text by using the TEXT function with the TODAY or NOW functions. For example, to display

Today is 2/18/98

where 2/18/98 is the current date, use the following formula:

="Today is "TEXT(TODAY(),"m/d/yy")

NOTE: You can substitute the NOW function for the TODAY function in the preceding formula to display the date and time or just the time (depending on the number format that you specify).

You can also display

Today is 2/18/98

and preserve the value of the date as a serial number rather than converting it to text.

To display the current time, use the following formula:

=NOW()-TODAY()

This formula updates each time the sheet is calculated.

MORE INFORMATION

The TEXT() function converts a value to text in a specified number format.

To display the following text

The current date and time is 2/18/93 5:57 PM

use this formula:

="The current date and time is "&TEXT(NOW(),"m/d/yy h:mm AM/PM")

To display the following text

The current time is 5:57 PM

use this formula:

="The current time is "&TEXT(NOW(),"h:mm AM/PM")

If you want a linked formula in a chart to display this information but you do not want to open the file, use the TEXT() function.

To display the time but preserve the value as a serial number, follow these steps:

Select the cell that you want to format.
On the Format menu, click Cells, and then click the Number tab. In the Category list, click Custom.
In the Type entry box, type Today is (enclosed in quotation marks and with one space after "is") immediately followed by the date format that you want to use (for example, m/d/yy, or d/mmm/yy), and then click OK.
In the formatted cell, type =TODAY().