Date & Time Functions
These spreadsheet functions are used for inserting and editing dates and times.
 | The functions whose names end with _ADD return the same results as the corresponding Microsoft Excel functions. Use the functions without _ADD to get results based on international standards. For example, the WEEKNUM function calculates the week number of a given date based on international standard ISO 6801, while WEEKNUM_ADD returns the same week number as Microsoft Excel. |
OpenOffice.org internally handles a date/time value as a numerical value. If you assign the numbering format "Number" to a date or time value, it is converted to a number. For example, 01/01/2000 12:00 PM, converts to 36526.5. The value preceding the decimal point corresponds to the date; the value following the decimal point corresponds to the time. If you do not want to see this type of numerical date or time representation, change the number format (date or time) accordingly. To do this, select the cell containing the date or time value, call its context menu and select Format Cells. The Numbers tab page contains the functions for defining the number format.
Date base for day zero
Dates are calculated as offsets from a starting day zero. You can set the day zero to be one of the following:
|
Date base |
Use |
|
'12/30/99' |
(default) |
|
'01/01/00' |
(used in former StarCalc 1.0) |
|
'01/01/04' |
(used in Apple software) |
Choose Tools - Options - OpenOffice.org Calc - Calculate to select the date base.
 | When you copy and paste cells containing date values between different spreadsheets, both spreadsheet documents must be set to the same date base. If date bases differ, the displayed date values will change! |
Two digits years
In Tools - Options - OpenOffice.org - General you find the area Year (two digits). This sets the period for which two-digit information applies. Note that changes made here have an effect on some of the following functions.
| When entering dates, slashes or dashes used as date separators may be interpreted as arithmetic operators. Therefore, dates entered in this format are not always recognized as dates and result in erroneous calculations. To keep dates from being interpreted as parts of formulas, place them in quotation marks, for example, "07/20/54". |
Functions
Index
date and time functions
functions, date & time
Function Wizard, date & time
This help text is published from the OpenOffice-Help files under the Public Documentation License 1.0.
