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The DATEDIF Function in Excel is categorized under Excel Date/Time functions. As a financial analyst, we may require the number of days, months, or years between two dates. The DATEDIF function helps us calculate the difference. MacBook Pro 17, iMac 21.5, Mac OS X (10.6.3) Posted on May 24, 2010 8:32 PM. Question: Q: DATEDIF function in Numbers More Less. Apple Footer. As it turns out, the function exists, as with many other Excel features, purely for compatibility with Lotus Notes 123 – a long since discontinued spreadsheet program. Given there’s no direct alternative for DATEDIF, it’s not clear why this isn’t a fully implemented function, but it exists, and you can use it with most versions on Excel. The datedif function has been a hidden function in Excel for several iterations. It is not 'missing'. Type it into the cell using it like below and you will see that it works. We have Excel 2016 on. Datedif does it work in excel Mac 2016? Posted by 11 hours ago. Datedif does it work in excel Mac 2016? So basically I’ve been trying to.

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DATEDIF is a hidden function in Excel. As the name suggests the job of this function is to calculate the difference between two given dates.

I have referred this function as hidden because, for some reason Microsoft has decided not to document this function. And because of this you won’t find this function in the Formula Tab.

To verify this, try and type =DATE in any cell. You will see, Excel enlists all the functions that start with the word “date” but it doesn’t shows DATEDIF.

Please note that, DATEDIF Function in Excel is totally different from the DATEDIFF (Notice the extra ‘F’) Function in VBA.

Syntax of Excel DATEDIF function

Learning the syntax of DATEDIF function is very important. Because for applying this function you need to know its complete syntax as Excel won’t provide you any help on this.

The Syntax of DATEDIF function is as follows:

Here, ‘Start_Date’ is the starting date of the period that you wish to calculate. ‘Start_Date’ can be entered as a string within double quotes (like: “10/10/2013”), it can also be entered as a serial number, as Excel internally treats dates as serial numbers (for example: the number 41557 represents “10/10/2013”, if you are using the 1900 date system), or you can also supply the dates as a formula (like: =DATE(2013,10,10)).

‘End_Date’ is the last date of the period that you wish to calculate. Similar to ‘Start_Date’, ‘End_Date’ can also be entered as a string, number or a formula.

‘Unit’ specifies the interval by which you want the difference to be returned. There are 6 ‘Units’, which are described as under:

How to Use Excel DATEDIF function

Now, let’s understand how to use the DATEDIF function in excel.

Objective: Let’s, consider our objective is to find the number of days from 14 April 1912 (The day on which Titanic Sank) till today’s date.

So, we will try to apply the DATEDIF formula.

‘Start_Date’: In this case our ‘Start_Date’ will be 14 April 1912.

‘End_Date’: End_Date will be today’s date. So, instead of entering today’s date manually, we will use the Today() function.

‘Unit’: As we want to find the number of days between the period. So, the ‘Unit’ will be “d”.

This formula results in 36910 days.

Some Important points about DATEDIF Formula

• DATEDIF throws a #NUM error is Start_Date is greater than ‘End_Date’.
• It throws a #Value error if anyone of the date arguments is invalid.
• It also throws a #NUM error if the ‘Unit’ is invalid.

Few Examples of DATEDIF Function

Now, let’s move to some examples of the DATEDIF function:

Datedif Function Excel For Mac 2016 Manual

Example 1: Write a formula to calculate the total number of years from 1/1/2001 to 1/1/2007.

This can be simply done by using the below formula:

And the answer is 6.

Example 2: Write a formula to calculate the number of complete months from 1/1/2001 to 1/1/2007.

The formula that we are going to user here is:

The answer is 72 i.e. 6 years X 12 months in each year =72

Example 3: Write a formula to calculate your age in years, months and days.

For finding the age we will need birth date of a person. In our example we will take the birth date as 12/12/1986

So, we will use a formula

The need to supress zero values

In Example 3 we have seen how DATEDIF function can be used of calculating age. However, if the number of years and/or months is 0, then the resultant of the formula looks strange.

Okay, I will try to explain this in detail.

Consider that we have to calculate age of a baby born on 12/12/2012.

So, will try to use the formula:

See, what the result of this formula is.

Doesn’t 0 years looks odd.

So, to fix this issue we will use the IF function along with Excel DATEDIF.

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And the new formula will be:

I think now you all would agree, that the output of this new formula looks better than the old one.

Is DATEDIF a safe function?

I know this is a bit strange but many Excel Gurus say that it’s not good to use DATEDIF in your important workbooks. As this is an undocumented function and going forward there may be a chance that Microsoft may remove support for this function.

So, what’s the alternative to DATEDIF?

The alternative to Excel DATEDIF would be a User-defined function (UDF) that internally uses the VBA DATEDIFF function:

This UDF accepts three parameters:

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• Start_Date: The days from which the period begins.
• End_Date: It is the last date of the period that you wish to calculate.
• Unit: It specifies the interval by which you want the difference. Here the unit accepts following values.

Example 4: Using this UDF to find the number of days between “01/01/2010” and “01/01/2012”.

To do this we will use the formula:

And it results into 730.

So, this was all about Excel DATEDIF function. Do let me know in case you come across any issues while using this function.

The english function name DATEDIF() has been translated into 15 languages. For all other languages, the english function name is used. There are some differences between the translations in different versions of Excel.

Availability

Datedif Function Excel For Mac 2016 Version

Reference language

Translations

Links to the Microsoft Online Help for the function DATEDIF()

Note: Microsoft is currently updating the links and contents for the Excel online help. Therefore, some of the following links may not work as expected and lead to an error page. The links will on this site will be updated as soon as possible.

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