Entering the time in Excel is very easy. However, knowing the exact methods to do so will be more helpful. Suppose, you want to display the date along with the time, or if you simply want the time to update as per when the document is accessed.
You need to utilize formulas if you want the time and dates to update themselves. In either case, if you only need to add the current time or date in a cell, you do not need to type in the information, you will need to know some keyboard shortcuts to achieve that. In this article, we will discuss how to enter time and date in Excel by mentioning every possible method.
Methods To Enter Time & Date In Excel
- Formulas (works with Microsoft Excel, WPS Office, Libre Office, Apache OpenOffice)
- Keyboard Shortcuts
How To Enter Date Which Updates Automatically In Excel?
If you want the date to refresh automatically (i.e dynamic date or time), you need to implement certain excel functions which lets you display the current date and time as per when the document is accessed or modified. There are two functions which are being used to achieve the same, they are:
NOW () & TODAY() – the functions utilized without the syntax.
You just need to type in “=NOW()” in the required cell to display date and time which varies automatically (you can simply copy and paste the function enclosed within the double quotes.
If you need to display only the date which updates automatically, you need to type in “=TODAY()” in a cell you want to add it to.
Do note that the date and time are fetched from the system. So, if you want it to work as per a specified International time – you will not be able to do that.
How To Enter Static Time & Date Using Keyboard Shortcuts?
Suppose you do not want the date/time to update itself but you only want the excel sheet to contain the current date, you can do that by using some keyboard shortcuts.
The keyboard shortcuts are as follows:
WINDOWS OS
- CTRL + ; (For current date)
- CTRL + SHIFT + ; (For current time)
MAC OS
- COMMAND key + ; (For current time)
- Control + ; (For current date)
You can always choose to input the date and time (as preferred) manually. However, in order to make it display the way you want it to look like, you should check out the official FAQ section for Microsoft Excel that talks about formatting numbers as dates – that should help.
Wrapping Up
Now that you know the formulas and keyboard shortcuts to add time and date to an excel sheet, you can use the same for other spreadsheet programs like WPS Office & Libre Office. Let us know in the comments section below if you face any trouble adding the time and date to Excel.
Filed in . Read more about Excel.