DATEVALUE doesn’t get the tax returns of the date your daughter just introduced, but Excel Video 164 does show you how to use DATEVALUE to change text to a date. Just like Excel Video 162 changed text to values with the VALUE function, DATEVALUE changes text to a date.
While DATEVALUE is easy to use, I always use the Text to Columns feature to change text to dates from Excel 2007 on. If you’re on an earlier version of Excel or you want to decide whether or how to change text as part of a formula, you’ll need DATEVALUE. I’ll demonstrate DATEVALUE, Text to Columns, and a basic formula in Excel Video 164.
Notice that Excel stores dates as numbers. After you convert text to dates, Excel may display the date as a number, like it did in the video. Once Excel recognizes the data as a date, it’s simply a matter of choosing a date format for the cell to see the date you’re looking for.
Why bother changing text to a date? There are several date functions built into Excel to analyze dates stored as dates. Stay tuned. Next time we’ll use the WEEKDAY function to look at a date and calculate if it’s a weekend as we determine call.
