How to vlookup and return date format instead of number in Excel?
The vlookup function is used frequently in Excel for daily work. For example, you are trying to find a date based on the max value in a specified column with the Vlookup formula =VLOOKUP(MAX(C2:C8), C2:D8, 2, FALSE). However, you may notice that the date is displayed as a serial number instead of date format as below screenshot showed. Except for manually changing the cell formatting to date format, is there any handy way to handle it? This article will show you an easy way to solve this problem.
Vlookup and return date format instead of a number in Excel
One click to convert mm.dd.yyyy or other date format to mm/dd/yyyy format in Excel:
Click Kutools > Content > Convert to Date. The Kutools for Excel's Convert to Date utility helps you easily convert mm.dd.yyyy format (such as 01.12.2018) or Thursday, September 11, 2014 or other special date format to dd/mm/yyyy format in Excel. See below screenshot:
Office Tab Enable Tabbed Editing and Browsing in Office, and Make Your Work Much Easier...
Kutools for Excel Solves Most of Your Problems, and Increases Your Productivity by 80%
- Reuse Anything: Add the most used or complex formulas, charts and anything else to your favorites, and quickly reuse them in the future.
- More than 20 text features: Extract Number from Text String; Extract or Remove Part of Texts; Convert Numbers and Currencies to English Words.
- Merge Tools: Multiple Workbooks and Sheets into One; Merge Multiple Cells/Rows/Columns Without Losing Data; Merge Duplicate Rows and Sum.
- Split Tools: Split Data into Multiple Sheets Based on Value; One Workbook to Multiple Excel, PDF or CSV Files; One Column to Multiple Columns.
- Paste Skipping Hidden/Filtered Rows; Count And Sum by Background Color; Send Personalized Emails to Multiple Recipients in Bulk.
- Super Filter: Create advanced filter schemes and apply to any sheets; Sort by week, day, frequency and more; Filter by bold, formulas, comment...
- More than 300 powerful features; Works with Office
2007-2019 and 365; Supports all languages; Easy deploying in your enterprise or organization.
Vlookup and return date format instead of a number in Excel
If you want to get the date based on the max value in a certain column with the Vlookup function, and keep the date format in the destination cell. Please do as follows.
1. Please enter this formula: =TEXT(VLOOKUP(MAX(C2:C8), C2:D8, 2, FALSE),"MM/DD/YY") into a cell and press Enter key to get the correct result. See screenshot:
Note: Please enclose the vlookup formula with TEXT() function. And don’t forget to specify the date format with double quotes at the end of the formula.
Related articles:
The Best Office Productivity Tools
Kutools for Excel Solves Most of Your Problems, and Increases Your Productivity by 80%
- Reuse: Quickly insert complex formulas, charts and anything that you have used before; Encrypt Cells with password; Create Mailing List and send emails...
- Super Formula Bar (easily edit multiple lines of text and formula); Reading Layout (easily read and edit large numbers of cells); Paste to Filtered Range...
- Merge Cells/Rows/Columns without losing Data; Split Cells Content; Combine Duplicate Rows/Columns... Prevent Duplicate Cells; Compare Ranges...
- Select Duplicate or Unique Rows; Select Blank Rows (all cells are empty); Super Find and Fuzzy Find in Many Workbooks; Random Select...
- Exact Copy Multiple Cells without changing formula reference; Auto Create References to Multiple Sheets; Insert Bullets, Check Boxes and more...
- Extract Text, Add Text, Remove by Position, Remove Space; Create and Print Paging Subtotals; Convert Between Cells Content and Comments...
- Super Filter (save and apply filter schemes to other sheets); Advanced Sort by month/week/day, frequency and more; Special Filter by bold, italic...
- Combine Workbooks and WorkSheets; Merge Tables based on key columns; Split Data into Multiple Sheets; Batch Convert xls, xlsx and PDF...
- More than 300 powerful features. Supports Office/Excel
2007-2019 and 365. Supports all languages. Easy deploying in your enterprise or organization. Full features
30-day free trial. 60-day money back guarantee.
Office Tab Brings Tabbed interface to Office, and Make Your Work Much Easier
- Enable tabbed editing and reading in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Access, Visio and Project.
- Open and create multiple documents in new tabs of the same window, rather than in new windows.
- Increases your productivity by 50%, and reduces hundreds of mouse clicks for you every day!
